Air Zealand continued to fill more of its seats on Tasman and Pacific flights with loads in December rising from 85% to almost 87%.
Latest figures showed a 0.9% rise in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) but a reduction in capacity of 1.4% which left fewer seats empty than in December 2010.
Actual passenger numbers on Tasman and Pacific routes fell 0.7% to 308,000.
Air New Zealand’s long haul passenger numbers dipped 5% to 173,000 with RPK’s falling almost 4%. With capacity rising 0.9%, load factors dropped sharply, by 4.1 percentage points to 83.3%.
The carrier said passenger numbers on the Japan route continue to be “significantly” impacted by the earthquakes in Japan and Christchurch. Excluding Japan, capacity on the Asia/UK routes increased 10.6% as a result of additional services to Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Across its network, the carrier saw passenger numbers decline 0.6% to 1.3 million and loads fall 1.9 points to 84.4%.
Meanwhile, long haul yields were up 4.3% on December the previous year while short haul yields also climbed, by 1.9%.
