Air NZ passenger numbers down

Air New Zealand reduced its capacity on Tasman and Pacific routes by 12.9 per cent in December compared with a year ago, reflecting downsizing to smaller aircraft, reduced flight frequencies and the withdrawal of transtasman flights from Hamilton and Dunedin.

This resulted in the load factor, or percentage of occupied seats on an aircraft, increasing by 6.6 percentage points to 81.6 per cent.

The airline carried 1.2 million passengers in December, down 2.6 per cent on the same month last year.

Demand was down 5.6 per cent and capacity was reduced by 11 per cent.

Short-haul passenger numbers were 2 per cent lower than December last year and long-haul were 6.4 per cent lower.