Air NZ capacity drops 10 per cent

Air New Zealand has responded to the global economic downturn by reducing capacity by 10.2 per cent.

The airline carried 1.24 million passengers in March, down 7.6 per cent on the same month last year.

The airline's capacity was reduced by 10.2 per cent last March.

Long-haul capacity was reduced by 12.2 per cent and short-haul by 7 per cent.

Overall, the group's passenger load factor declined by 2.8 percentage points.

Rival Qantas this month announced 1750 job losses and plans to cut capacity by 5 per cent.

Easter fell in April this year and in March last year, which had an adverse impact on the March comparisons, Air NZ said.

The airline flew 5.8 per cent passengers on short-haul journeys and the load factor declined 0.5 percentage points.

The domestic airline's load factor increased by 2.8 percentage points.

There has been a lot of focus on the issue of increased competition on the transtasman route.

The airline said yesterday its Tasman-Pacific load factor fell by 2.4 percentage points.

Long-haul passenger numbers decreased by 17.2 per cent on the same month last year.

On North American and British routes passenger numbers fell by 21.1 per cent and on Asian and Japanese routes numbers fell by 13.3 per cent.

The load factor on long-haul flights dropped by 4.1 percentage points.

- NZPA