Air NZ Express stimulates demand for domestic seats

By CHRIS DANIELS aviation writer

Air New Zealand has published its latest operating statistics, showing healthy passenger growth and good load factors in January.

Traffic across the airline, which it measures by revenue passenger kilometres, was up just over 11 per cent when compared with January the year before.

The capacity of Air New Zealand - measured by "available seat kilometres"- was up just under 6 per cent.

Figures for the financial year to date - the seven months to January this year - were even better, with a 7.9 per cent increase in traffic, despite a slight reduction in capacity.

Domestic travel was stimulated by the Air New Zealand Express service, which the airline hoped would increase travel by up to 20 per cent.

Compared month to month, the increase in traffic was 11.2 per cent. But after taking out the impact of Freedom Air - which used to fly domestically until Express began - traffic on its domestic routes was up 23.2 per cent.

Across the whole group, Air NZ filled 84.3 per cent of all its seats in January, up from 80.2 per cent the year before.

Domestic flights in January were 80.7 per cent full, up from 69.2 per cent the year before.

International flights in January were 84.7 per cent full, up from 81.5 per cent.

Air New Zealand's neighbour and current rival Qantas yesterday said bookings on some of its flights were 20 per cent lower than normal, mainly due to concern over a coming war in Iraq.

This uncertainty has lead Qantas to cancel a planned bond offering, which it was hoping would raise between A$200 million ($218 million) and A$300 million from investors.

Qantas has also scrapped some services and required staff to take accumulated leave.