Ah, you need to explicitly add the region parameter to see the new zones: $ ec2-describe-availability-zones --region eu-west-1 AVAILABILITYZONE eu-west

Ah, you need to explicitly add the region parameter to see the new zones: $ ec2-describe-availability-zones --region eu-west-1 AVAILABILITYZONE eu-west-1a available eu-west-1 AVAILABILITYZONE eu-west-1b available eu-west-1 You also need to create a new SSH key: $ ec2-add-keypair eu-west-1-key --region eu-west-1