Air New Zealand improved its reliability in July, with 83.1 per cent of flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule, up 6.4 percentage points on July 2025.
The result eased slightly from June’s 86 per cent on-time performance, but marked a significant year-on-year gain despite weather-related delay minutes rising 74 per cent.
Air New Zealand chief operations officer, ground and in-flight, Kate Boyer said the airline recorded 246 fewer cancellations than July last year, despite facing greater weather disruption.
“We’re particularly encouraged to see improvements right across the network,” Boyer said. “International on-time performance improved by more than nine percentage points, while Auckland, our largest and most complex operation, improved by almost 10 percentage points.”
A 41 per cent reduction in reactionary delay minutes – delays that flow on to affect later flights – was among the largest contributors to the improvement, with 1,366 fewer flights affected by knock-on delays compared with July 2025.
Total cancellations fell 1.6 percentage points to 2.8 per cent, a reduction of 246 cancellations, while cancellations within the airline’s control dropped 1.2 percentage points to 1.0 per cent, or 184 fewer cancellations.
The airline is also extending its Automated Passenger Rebooking (APR) technology to international cancellations, having first introduced it for domestic flights in mid-2025. Where rebooking following a cancellation previously took up to four to six hours for some long-haul disruptions, customers with straightforward itineraries can now be rebooked in under 20 minutes.
Boyer said the technology allows customer teams to focus on complex itineraries and customers needing extra support.
“Going from potentially hours to minutes for some rebookings is a huge improvement for our customers,” she said.
Air New Zealand operated 13,397 flights across its domestic and international network in July, and carried 14,149 tonnes of cargo, including 370 tonnes of frozen seafood and salmon exported to North America.
