Qantas' Auckland Airport and Wellington Airport lounges reopen

Qantas is reopening its lounges in Auckland and Wellington just in time for the upcoming July school holidays.

The airline has shut them for much of the pandemic but in further signs of air travel returning, they will reopen today.

Qantas chief customer officer Stephanie Tully said that since restarting transtasman services, there had been strong demand across all routes.

"The recent removal of pre-departure testing by the New Zealand Government has seen a further spike in demand, resulting in some of our strongest days of transtasman sales since the reopening of borders," she said.

The airline was expecting a very busy school holiday period across the Tasman.

Qantas Auckland First Lounge and Qantas Auckland Business Lounge have both been
refreshed during the pandemic.

A new coffee cart in the Auckland Business Lounge will offer barista coffee from 4am throughout the day.

The Auckland lounges will be open from 4am to 7pm daily, while the Wellington lounge will be open two hours before every Qantas flight.

The Qantas Business Lounge at Auckland Airport. Photo / Grant Bradley

Guests will be able to select from a range of snacks and light refreshments with a new menu in place featuring local cheeses, salads, Neil Perry's bircher muesli and Kāpiti ice creams.

Both lounges will offer a full range of beverages, with beer, wine and spirits.

"Frequent flyers may notice a few differences in our Auckland lounge as we used the closure to give the space a refresh and introduce a barista coffee cart. We hope the new touches help make the pre-flight travel experience even more enjoyable," Tully said.

The airline is operating a mix of Boeing 737-800 and widebody Airbus A330 across the Tasman.

While transtasman capacity is being built up, in the past week the airline announced further cuts to its domestic network because of higher fuel costs and labour shortages.

An additional 5 per cent cut to domestic capacity followed a 10 per cent reduction, which was announced in May.

Despite the reduction in capacity, the airline will still be flying at above pre-pandemic levels by the second quarter of next year.

The airline planned to give A$5000 ($5530) bonuses to up to 19,000 staff when employees signed new union contracts after a two-year wage freeze during the pandemic.

Air New Zealand's lounges are open throughout the country, but at Auckland Airport the Strata Lounge - previously available to paying guests - is closed. The airport says on its website that: ''due to the ongoing changes to flight schedules and reduced passenger numbers,'' the lounge is temporarily closed.

Emirates' popular Auckland lounge is also closed as its schedule is down on pre-Covid operations. The airline's premium customers do currently have access to Air New Zealand's Koru lounge, said a spokesman.

Airlines take off

The recovery of global capacity continues, in spite of high fuel costs and severe labour shortages.

Analysts OAG say the number of seats is approaching 100 million with capacity expected to be restored to about 85 per cent of pre-Covid levels by September.

That will be boosted by the return of more double-decker A380s, among the first planes to be grounded and put into storage when the pandemic hit and paralysed aviation.

Lufthansa and Etihad had plans to return the Airbus A380 into their fleets to overcome aircraft delivery challenges in the next few years, OAG said.

In 2019 there were 14 airlines operating over 2300 A380 services. This week nine airlines will operate almost a thousand A380 flights of which Emirates would account for 70 per cent, British Airways 9 per cent and Qatar Airways 7 per cent.

Qantas now had four A380s out of storage, three flying regular routes and one being refurbished.