Discount fares help out stranded travellers

Air New Zealand subsidiary Freedom Air is offering cheap flights for travellers left stranded by the collapse of a Canadian airline last week.

Air New Zealand stepped in yesterday with special fares to get people home after Canada's second biggest airline, Canada 3000, grounded its 38 aircraft on Friday.

About 1200 New Zealanders were left with useless tickets, some of them stranded in Australia and Rarotonga.

Freedom Air said yesterday that it had discounted some one-way transtasman fares to $250 until mid-December.

Air NZ reduced its one-way economy fare from Rarotonga to $350 and cut one-way fares from Brisbane or Sydney to Auckland to $A299 ($NZ372.30). It also waived advance purchase conditions on its lowest fares to allow some passengers booked with Canada 3000 to rebook with Air NZ.

Canada 3000's Auckland flights for the summer season started last Tuesday but only two aircraft, carrying a total of 300 people, left before the airline collapsed.

Some passengers will get insurance refunds, but most who booked after mid-September will miss out because New Zealand insurers scrapped the insolvency clauses in their contracts from then.

Canada 3000 had just entered its fourth New Zealand season.