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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Charities turning away high numbers of volunteer applications
Charities are turning away people wanting to volunteer amidst a flood of interest they say is linked to the high rate of unemployment.
It comes as some businesses receive thousands of applications for paid roles and people look for experience anywhere they can.
The advocacy organisation Volunteering NZ has been tracking the trend. Spokesperson Margaret McLachlan said there has been a considerable rise in applications for volunteer roles across a range of charities.
Many application forms asks people to divulge if they are job hunters.
"Over the last year or so, they are seeing more people coming in who are saying they are in that category. They are looking for work but doing volunteering while that process is taking place."
"As unemployment increases and the cost of living, times are tougher for everybody."
At the same time, she said community organisations supporting social services were busier and needed more helpers.
McLachlan said depending on the organisation, they might want to do a police check, a reference check and an interview.
"In some cases it can be a process to go through and not always, and that can take some time.
"It's actually the same barriers that a person might find in finding a job, can also apply to volunteering. It's not always a easy option."
SPCA had 120 op shops and animal rescue centres across the country in which volunteers worked.
General manager of retail Cathy Crichton said they received about 1300 extra applications for volunteer roles, a 32 percent increase, from June to November 2025, compared to 2024.
"There's definitely a nudge forward which is very exciting and we're very grateful."
But it meant they were not accepting any more volunteers in some areas.
"Because the applications are up it's a unique scenario. But at this point in time, in smaller locations, we've actually got a hold in 19 locations in New Zealand where we are at capacity - and that's very rare and it's a very new trend."
Crichton said anyone seeking volunteer work should think creatively about what skills they can offer - it could be in administration or marketing.
"We'd love to welcome as many people as we could because the more hands on deck the more we can do and the more we can contribute to the community."
She said people were self-motivated to apply for volunteer work.
The unemployment rate rose to 5.3 percent in the September quarter, meaning 160,000 people were jobless. The next quarterly figures are out in February.
"There's a willingness to give back and contribute to the community. Unemployment being high really does encourage people to engage with the workforce and get experience," Crichton said.
"It really is about staying connected with the community and meeting others."
She said they had also seen an increase in young people seeking volunteer work experience.
"It's a great opportunity to get work experience and a reference and there's an appeal there as an employer...I really do think it adds value to a CV."
Stats NZ data showed over half of New Zealanders, 53 percent, volunteered during March 2025 and of those, 27.6 percent volunteered through an organisation and 40.8 percent volunteered directly for another person.
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