“With the international border reopening, 2.9 million customers travelled with us compared to half a million in 2021, providing significant and welcome support for Aotearoa’s ongoing tourism industry recovery.”
Unsurprisingly, the airline’s busiest day was December 23, when 55,000 customers flew to their holiday destinations.
However, returning to sky-high travel numbers was not without effort, Geraghty said.
“There’s a lot of work behind the scenes - our cleaning team cleaned approximately 100,000 aircraft seats every week,” she said.
Hungry (and thirsty) for travel
The crew handed out 4.9 million Cookie Time cookies last year, 12 million Air New Zealand lollies, and 1.6 million savoury snacks.
Soft drinks reigned supreme, with customers ordering 353,748 litres in 2022. In terms of alcoholic drinks, passengers ordered the largest quantity of beer (219,900 litres), followed by red wine (117,308 litres) and sauvignon blanc (62,309 litres).
Cargo is all-go
Aside from passengers, Air New Zealand was also busy carting 114,000 tonnes of cargo across the country and around the world. The airline transported more than 13,000 tonnes of fresh produce, the largest quantities being capsicums, blueberries, cherries, avocados and tomatoes.
This was followed by 5800 tonnes of chilled meat such as lamb, beef and chicken and 1400 tonnes of lobster.
Pets were also regular passengers in 2022; the airline carried 11,234 pets domestically and internationally. Alongside the cats and dogs were birds, guinea pigs, lizards, rabbits, reptiles and even a frog and a turtle.
