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Air New Zealand is using larger planes for more than 350 domestic services this month following better-than-expected demand for Christmas flights.
The tail of an Air New Zealand plane. Source: Air New Zealand
The airline said it will add another 16,000 additional seats to services, which involves “upgrading” flights from an Airbus A320 to the larger A321.
Director of Customers and Sales Leanne Geraghty said the airline wants to make sure everyone can get where they are going this month.
“This will see around 80 per cent of Auckland-Wellington services and around 25 per cent of Auckland-Christchurch services operated by our new and larger A321 aircraft, with 214 seats compared to 171 on the A320.” Geraghty said.
“Customers will also get the inflight entertainment voucher on these flights.
“Naturally, the demand is higher to travel at certain times of the day, for example, first thing in the morning. By flying at different times of the day, customers will find more fare options available.
“Demand in a post-Covid world has been much more variable than before Covid, as reservations are often made very late and flights sell out.
“We have been adding capacity wherever possible, making more seats available at lower rates.
“In November we added more than 26,000 seats to the network to travel in the same month, either by adding new flights or by deploying larger aircraft on existing routes.
“We are doing everything we can to keep the Kiwis connected and so far we have sold more than 550,000 seats for less than $ 100 to travel between December and February.”
