Air New Zealand ramping up Australia, Pacific Islands flights as new Airbus planes arrive
Air New Zealand says it will add 130,000 seats on flights to Australia, Rarotonga, Fiji and Tahiti this summer.
Two new Airbus A320s and more customer demand for destinations including Adelaide have been cited as driving the expansion.
“That’s been enabled through two new 320Qs, or narrow-body aircraft, being delivered,” said Lucy Hall, the airline’s short-haul general manager.
“They’re 214-seat, narrow-body aircraft. One of them has already arrived and one is on its way, so we’ll be introducing that in the next couple of weeks into our network.”
The airline will this summer also deploy more wide-body aircraft on key routes.
Air New Zealand said the summer expansion would cement its position as the biggest transtasman carrier, ahead of rival Qantas.
The airline will add 8% more premium seats on its short-haul network and have up to 42 flights each week on widebody jets to Australia.
“We’re seeing really strong demand, particularly for Australia,” Hall added.
Perth was an increasingly popular destination for people flying from Auckland, she said.
Australia’s 2021 Census found at least 59,000 New Zealand-born people lived in the city, with three-quarters of them in the workforce.
Hall said Air New Zealand was growing its Auckland-Perth services from one a day to nine a week.
The airline said it would also add 30,000 seats on its Auckland-Perth route.
Hall told the Herald that Adelaide’s food culture and its Fringe Festival, set for February 20 to March 22 next year, were luring Kiwi travellers.
Christchurch–Adelaide is a new transtasman route, starting on October 27.
“We saw previously that a lot of those customers are travelling over the east coast of Australia, so this is just making it easier to get to Adelaide,” Hall said.
She said the airline tracked demand for the big eastern seaboard cities and reached the point where it felt demand was great enough to make that direct service to Adelaide viable.
Rival Qantas last month announced plans for new direct Auckland-Adelaide flights, starting on October 31.
But Air New Zealand said 1.7 million seats would be available on its transtasman flights between October this year and next March.
An average of up to six Air New Zealand wide-body jet flights a day would go to Australia.
The airline also planned an uplift in premium seating to meet what it called strong demand from both business and leisure travellers.
The Auckland-Sydney route would have an extra 25,000 seats, 30% of them premium, and up to 13 services a week.
The Auckland-Brisbane flight would get an extra 18,400 seats over summer.
“There’ll be extra seats over that busy Christmas period, but also in the shoulder periods leading in[to] and following Christmas,” Hall said.
The Auckland-Melbourne route would have up to 16,000 extra seats over summer, and also up to 13 wide-body services a week.
From Auckland to the Gold Coast, another 8500 seats would be added.
Air New Zealand said 25,000 extra seats would also be available on Pacific Islands flights this summer.
The Auckland-Rarotonga route would get 8000 more seats.
On the Fiji route, the Auckland-Nadi service would get 8600 more seats.
The airline said it would add 1600 seats to its Tahiti service, with a 37% increase in premium seating.
Hall said Boeing 787 Dreamliners or 777s serviced the Tahiti route.
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Christmas gifts stolen from parked car prompts warning over holiday break-ins
An Auckland man whose Christmas presents were stolen from his car on a quiet street is warning others not to repeat his mistake.
Police and the AA say opportunistic thieves are breaking into cars more frequently during the Christmas period.
Jeremy Rees, an RNZ staff member in Auckland, had packed his car full of gifts when he decided to visit a friend.
“Everyone had handed over presents and we had a couple of bags full of presents sitting in the back of the car,” he said.
“I decided it would be great to go around and see a friend, drop off some presents and say hello. My wife said to me, ‘Are you sure we should be taking this car?’ I said, ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine’.
“I think it was only 20 minutes outside their house, a very quiet street. It was light [outside]. We came out and my wife pointed out that someone had smashed the rear window, reached in and grabbed the presents, and headed away.
“It was a shock. It was a shock partly because of the Christmas presents and partly because my wife had been telling me, ‘Don’t do that’.”
AA Insurance head of motor claims Beau Paparoa said roadside staff were responding to smashed windows more often.
“We definitely see car break-ins starting to occur a lot more around this time of year. We’re often hearing from customers and some of our roadside teams that there’s definitely a bit more opportunistic theft happening,” he said.
“We’re putting that down to it being a busy time of year. Everyone’s out doing their Christmas shopping and there’s much more presence of gifts and valuables being visible in the car.”
He encouraged people to be careful and make sure valuables were hidden from view.
“In terms of any valuables, if you’ve done some Christmas shopping, or if generally you’ve got valuables in your car, try [to] keep them locked away or out of sight – in your boot if you can,” he said.
“Where you’re parking is possibly a good thing to think about. If you can afford to, don’t park on the street, but if you have to park on-street, make sure you park in well-lit areas.”
Police said it was not uncommon for Christmas presents to be stolen.
“The key is to remove any opportunity. This includes taking valuables or documents out of vehicles wherever possible,” a spokesperson said.
Rees said he wished he had followed that advice.
“I feel a bit stupid, to be absolutely honest. I read all of the things from police saying ‘don’t do this, don’t pack your car, don’t just leave it on the street’, and I did exactly the opposite and I paid the price.”
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