Air NZ cuts more Asia flights over Sars fears

By CHRIS DANIELS

Air New Zealand has cut more international flights as Sars fears bite deeper into forward bookings.

The airline has cut another 2 per cent of its international capacity, taking to 8 per cent the total cut due to Sars.

Yesterday's announcement extends a policy of flight cancellations and a move to fly smaller planes on some routes.

Some new cancellations have been announced for flights to and from Singapore and Taipei.

Airline chief executive Ralph Norris said the extension of the route changes and new cancellations was "a prudent business response to a clearly changed air travel environment due to Sars".

While there would be no redundancies, Norris said staff changes would result from what was a longer- term reduction in services.

"These options cover a range of accepted HR practices including staff leave options, reducing overtime and a freeze on recruitment," he said.

The airline has delayed the planned introduction of a new Boeing 767 in December.

But there is no change to Air New Zealand's planned introduction of up to 30 new Airbus A320 planes.

Norris said bookings on the Los Angeles and London routes remained strong.

The airline's domestic, transtasman and cargo operations had been unaffected by Sars.

He said some of the latest schedule changes, such as those made to Hong Kong and Taiwan, meant the airline was going back to what it was offering at the same time last year.

Yesterday's cuts in capacity come just three weeks after Air New Zealand cut its earnings forecast by 13 per cent, reducing its expected pretax profit forecast by $30 million to $200 million for the year to June 30.