Air New Zealand will increase capacity from Auckland to Perth by 20% from September with the carrier deploying Boeing 777-200 aircraft on the route.
The carrier said it was tapping into demand on both sides of the Tasman.
“Perth is one of our fastest growing routes with significant increase in demand,” deputy chief executive Norm Thompson told media at TRENZ this morning. “With our alliance partner Virgin Australia we have reviewed our schedule and capacity to better match demand.”
Thompson also said capacity to Queenstown from Australia during the ski season will increase by 8%.
Available seats from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane will increase by 13%, 10% and 3% respectively to cater for “expected high demand”.
“These extra 6314 seats will take our number of direct flights to Queenstown from Australia to 18 return services each week, or 243 services over the ski season,” Thompson said. “We will have a greater spread of days.”
Turning to the international market, he confirmed the carrier will add a fifth weekly flight to Shanghai from July, rising to six per week in time for the Chinese New Year.
While the number of Chinese visitors to New Zealand has risen from 105,000 to 160,000 in the 12 months ending March, Thompson said he was more concerned with increasing the average length of stay of Chinese visitors.
“We are working on a number of initiatives in the local market to increase the number of Chinese visitors choosing to travel directly and exclusively to New Zealand,” he said.
Figures released by Auckland Airport show only 9% of Chinese arrivals are holidaying solely in New Zealand with 86% also visiting Australia.
Air NZ taps into Tasman demand
