Hundreds of Air New Zealand jobs on offer as contact centre calls balloon

Air New Zealand is on the hunt for 200 contact centre workers after some customers have been left waiting for two hours to talk to staff.

The airline says that unacceptably long wait times are the result of a surge in contact centre calls as Kiwis start to book flights and have more complex inquiries than before the pandemic.

''We are working really hard to get the resource ramped up, we acknowledge that we're not providing the customer service level that we would like to,'' said Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty.

The airline is now trying to recruit 200 contact centre staff but the tight job market means it may have to redeploy some staff to other parts of the business in the meantime.

She said the roles are full-time permanent ones that start with annual salaries of around $55,000. They are based at the airline's headquarters in downtown Auckland or at Concentrix in Mt Albert.

''We're working with an organisation that [recently] let some contact centre people go and working really hard to get out the message that these are great opportunities.''

There are now 250 contact centre staff who are dealing with up to 10,000 calls a day, a volume that is far greater than before the pandemic.

Geraghty said a small number of callers were waiting two hours or more.

Previously around one in eight customers called the airline before travel but now it's one in three.

This is leading to not only more calls but also longer call times, with the average call handling time being around 16 minutes – approximately 50 per cent longer than pre-Covid.

While there were online options, the extra layers of complexity meant many weren't able to complete their bookings without help from the contact centre. Customers needed help trying to locate their credit, may have multiple credits they want to combine or use with a different type of payment.

''While we have been recruiting into our contact centre since December last year, we just can't keep up with the number of calls. At the moment, it's taking us a lot longer to respond to customers than we would like, with some waiting hours to speak to someone,'' Geraghty said.

''This is frustrating for our customers and stressful for our teams and we'd like to thank everyone for their patience."

The airline operated 200 international flights last week, about 40 per cent of its pre-Covid network and was relaunching other destinations during the coming months.

"The fact that travel is rebounding quicker than we expected is a really positive thing but that comes with its challenges."

For many customers, these trips will be their first in more than two years, and it's different to what it used to be, said Geraghty.

''The new travel environment is complex, and what we're hearing from our customers is that they have a preference to speak to a person rather than booking online or using an app."

Training of new recruits would take two months.