Flights resuming in ‘phased’ way
AUCKLAND: Emirates has resumed flights to New Zealand in a ‘‘measured and phased’’ approach to rebuilding its network as airlines around the world get back to work at the fastest rate since Covid19 slammed the industry.
Four years ago, Emirates was flying five Airbus A380s between New Zealand and Dubai a day. Now it is flying a Boeing 777 to Auckland just three times a week.
The 777300ER has capacity for up to 434 passengers but is operating with reduced numbers on board as it devotes more space to cargo in and out of the country.
Emirates regional manager Chris Lethbridge said he expected strong demand for the flights, which provide an important new way of flying between New Zealand and Europe.
‘‘We expect a strong demand on flights from New Zealand given the services to/from the country have been limited for the past few months. The resumption of services will help repatriate customers who were not able to return home due to the closure of borders and flight restrictions.’’
Emirates was working closely with the New Zealand Government ‘‘and following all standard protocols and procedures’’ over filing flight schedules. The Ministry of Health said in the past week it was given details of passengers on flights coming to New Zealand at a late stage — after the doors were closed.
The resumption of limited New Zealand services is part of the rebuild from a complete grounding of its fleet in April, to 52 destinations by later this month. The airline is returning some of its 115 grounded A380s to the air on dense routes between Dubai and Europe.
During the past two months the airline has run dedicated freight flights to and from Auckland, carrying up to 30 tonnes, after winning contracts from the Government as part of its aviation package.
Commodities from New Zealand include food items such as chilled meat, medical appliances, pharmaceuticals and honey to the rest of the world.
Mr Lethbridge said the airline had introduced a ‘‘generous’’ refund policy to ensure customers had a variety of options.
Passengers could either keep their existing tickets for up to two years, exchange the unused portion for a travel voucher equivalent to the amount paid for their original booking, or get a refund if they are unable to travel without any refund penalties.
Regional rival Qatar Airways has kept flying throughout the pandemic, although it has cut some routes, including Auckland where it is due to return in October.
On Wednesday the airline relaunched 11 more destinations, its largest single day of restarts since the Covid19 crisis hit.
Its network will expand to more than 430 weekly flights to over 65 destinations, including Bali, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington DC.
Qatar Airways said it provided ‘‘an honest network’’ that never fell below 30 destinations when flying was scaled back in April and May.
It has also resumed flights to Cardiff, where its group chief executive, Akbar Al Baker, told WalesBusinessReview over the next two years it would review its complete network and he didn’t expect business travel to recover soon.
‘‘People are getting used to doing video conferences, working from home, trying to save costs, which will be the new normal for the foreseeable future,’’ he said.
‘‘The only business class travellers will be the people that will travel to visit places and friends, and that will take at least two or three years to get back. So the airline industry and the travel industry is in for a longer recession.’’
The airline has also changed its booking policies to allow unlimited date changes, and passengers can change their destination as often as they need if it is within 8000km of the original destination.
Around the world, the first official week of the northern summer resulted in the strongest weekonweek growth in capacity during the Covid19 crisis, with about 8.2 million seats, route analyst company OAG said.
That was a 21% weekonweek increase, but analyst John Grant warned it might also be a week with a very high rate of cancellations as airlines waited for demand to respond.
‘‘Capacity now stands at 41% of that available in the same week last year, some seven percentage points up on last week — quite a remarkable rate of growth as airlines, travellers and stakeholders around the world scramble to save the summer.’’
Lowcost carriers in Europe have been rapidly restoring capacity as countries in the bloc open up borders to tourists. And in China — for now the biggest airline market — domestic capacity appears to have bounced back from last week’s lockdown in Beijing.
Total capacity has increased by nearly a million seats and Chinese domestic capacity this week is at 86% of pre Covid19 levels, although international capacity remains at less than 10% of normal.
In the United States, capacity this week is up 14.3% on the previous seven days, according to the OAG figures.
Air New Zealand this week added more capacity to its domestic schedule ahead of the school holidays, with the 302seat Dreamliner to operate between Auckland and Christchurch during this time.
It will operate 16 return passenger services between Auckland and Christchurch until July 19, adding almost 10,000 extra seats on this route.
On the AucklandQueenstown route there will be more capacity over the holidays than during the same time last year, through upgrading 140 return services from A320s to its larger A321neo aircraft until July 26.
The airline faces competition for the first time in months, with the return of Jetstar. The Qantas subsidiary is ‘‘initially’’ flying 75 return flights per week to five destinations in New Zealand — Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown — returning to about 60% of its normal domestic schedule. — The New Zealand Herald