Air NZ returns to Australian market

Air New Zealand is dipping its toe back into the Australian market with plans to start a direct Sydney to Rarotonga service next year.

The service, to run on a trial basis between July and October, will be the first international route from Australia, other than to New Zealand, in five years for the airline.

Air New Zealand dropped its Australian service from Sydney to Los Angeles in 2003 due to a lack of demand.

Its brand was severely damaged in Australia when subsidiary Ansett Australia collapsed in 2001. Air New Zealand was bailed out by the Government later that year.

General manager of Tasman Pacific airline operatons, Glen Sowry, said the new weekly Cook Islands service would cater for existing demand for a direct flight. The airline already carried a large number of Australian passengers to Rarotonga via Auckland.

The direct service was expected to increase demand and there would be no reduction in the Auckland flights, Mr Sowry said.

The service would use a wide-body 223-seat Boeing 767-300 and take six hours to reach the Cook Islands and just over seven hours for the return journey.

Air New Zealand's brand had recovered in Australia, Mr Sowry said. "Over the past few years we have seen that the brand and the demand for travel and the acceptance of the Air New Zealand products has been very strong ex-Australia. We would like to believe that that chapter in our history is behind us and that Australians have moved on."

Meanwhile, the airline said its group load factor rose by 5.4 percentage points in November when a 10.2 per cent cut in capacity countered the impact of a 3.7 per cent fall in demand. It carried 951,000 passengers, down 0.6 per cent on the same month last year.

Tasman/Pacific capacity was reduced by 17.4 per cent as the airline used smaller aircraft, reduced frequencies on some sectors and withdrew trans-Tasman flights from Hamilton and Dunedin.

This resulted in the load factor increasing by 8.8 percentage points to 79.9 per cent.

Short haul passenger numbers decreased by 0.2 per cent compared to November last year. In the domestic market, demand rose by 4.3 per cent compared to last year and the load factor rose to 77.5 per cent as capacity was cut by 3 per cent.

Long haul passenger numbers decreased by 3.1 per cent on last year. Capacity on the Asia/Japan/ Britain routes was reduced by 18.2 per cent in response to a 12.9 per cent decline in demand, resulting in loads increasing by 4.9 percentage points to 80.5 per cent.

Ninety per cent of Air New Zealand's domestic flights departed within 10 minutes of schedule departure time in November.

- © Fairfax NZ News