With the restart of 14 international flights in 16 days, Air New Zealand is preparing for its busiest July in the past two years.
The airline will be running 60% of its international capacity once these routes are back in service, which is the most international flying in the previous two years.
With famous destinations like Honolulu, Houston, and Tahiti starting up again after almost 820 days of inactivity, the airline will have three-quarters of its domestic and international routes back in operation as of July 9.
The Boeing 777-300 aircraft will also resume passenger service, contributing to the increase of almost 40,000 weekly seats on the international network in July.
Greg Foran, Chief Executive Officer of Air New Zealand, is extremely proud of the sheer amount of work his staff has put in to get to this point and believes it takes a village to get the airline back up and operating.
“To bring one Boeing 777-300 out of storage in Auckland takes around six to eight weeks to get it ready for the skies. We’ve hired or rehired more than 2,000 Air New Zealanders across the business including 150 pilots, more than 500 cabin crew, and 270 airport employees, with another 1100 vacancies to be filled.
It’s no easy feat but we’re getting back to where we were so we can give our customers that Air New Zealand service they know and love,” Foran said.
“We’re seeing firsthand how keen people are to travel again, particularly across the Tasman. Come July, we will double our services across the Tasman and restart popular direct services like the Sunshine Coast, Hobart, and Adelaide.
By 9 July we will be back at all nine Australian ports which is an important milestone for us. I’d like to thank our customers for their patience while we get back to where we were pre-Covid, as well as our teams who are working hard to gear back up.
Getting aircraft out of storage, people back in, opening ports, and working with new travel requirements, there’s a lot to consider, and the Air New Zealand team is doing their very best to make it happen as quickly as possible.”
