Air NZ’s Chicago route to boost tourist numbers
Airline hopes its latest non-stop service will attract more travellers
The already booming United States tourism market is set for a boost at the end of the year with Air New Zealand’s new Auckland-Chicago route. The three-times-a-week service will provide more than 85,000 seats on the route and it is estimated that it will inject about $70 million a year into the New Zealand economy.
Air NZ chief revenue officer Cam Wallace said the airline would target the premium leisure market in the US northeast. It was expected that there would be a reasonably even split between inbound US tourists and Kiwis heading to Chicago and beyond.
Across all its international routes, the airline has a higher proportion of New Zealanders heading overseas.
“We will start marketing very aggressively in the Chicago region to stimulate the demand and get people to New Zealand,” said Wallace.
Chicago will be the fourth nonstop mainland route to the US and the first direct flight linking New Zealand to the northeast.
Tourism NZ chief executive Stephen England-Hall said the new route made New Zealand more accessible than ever to one of the country’s most important tourism markets.
More than 222,000 US holiday visitors a year contributed more than $850 million to the economy, and there was an 11.3 per cent increase in US holiday visitor arrivals for the year to February.
Chicago O’Hare Airport is the major hub of Air NZ’s partner United Airlines, which connects to about 100 cities in the northeastern US and Canada, such as New York, Boston, Toronto and Montreal.
Wallace said his airline would station staff in United’s Chicago corporate headquarters, strengthening a relationship that had been built over the past three years.
That would give the airline “disproportionate branding and reach” among United’s 85,000 staff and about 100 million frequent fliers.
“In terms of us profiling our products and services to their frequent fliers, that’s obviously of huge importance to us.” As part of the deal United will extend its service between Auckland and its West Coast hub in San Francisco to year- round, introducing a three times weekly service.
Air NZ fares to Chicago on sale now are around $1900 return from throughout New Zealand, but Wallace said there would likely be discounted fares as the launch got closer and during the low season for the route — the New Zealand winter.
“Like any incremental launch into a new market we will stimulate it. We’re starting from a baseline of zero customers and we’ve got a lot of seats to sell — you should expect us to be aggressive in that, especially in the low season.”
The 13,200km flight would be the longest on the Air NZ network, and into prevailing winds the southbound trip would take more than 16 hours.
The airline’s Houston flight is just under 12,000km and takes about 141⁄ hours heading to New Zealand.
Although the Chicago flight is well within range of the Boeing 787-9 for passengers and their bags either way, there could be constraints on cargo, depending on the conditions.
Wallace said Chicago was subject to some extreme weather in winter but O’Hare International Airport was geared up for it.
House of Travel commercial director Brent Thomas said the new route not only provided a great holiday destination, but also alternative options for travellers heading to the East Coast of the US, or an easy stopover if going further afield to Europe.
Flight Centre says it has seen a 35 per cent growth in travel to Chicago from New Zealand this year, and it expects the new route to further stimulate travel to the area. Auckland-Chicago is one of the most telegraphed route announcements for years, but working through the detail took time.
Four years ago Chicago was a hot contender for Air NZ’s next US destination but Houston was chosen instead.
But Chicago’s time has come. Air New Zealand will start flying there three times a week but, as with any route, will likely look to build up frequency. The Houston service was quickly built up to daily over the summer peak.
There were delicate negotiations over Chicago with its revenue-sharing partner United Airlines, which on the face of it would be the logical operator of the service after it started flying here from San Francisco in 2016.
United grew to daily services but soon pulled back to seasonal flying. As part of the Chicago deal, United will return to year-round flying.
The agreement was also brokered before the retirement of an enthusiastic supporter of links to New Zealand, United’s senior vice-president of worldwide sales, Dave Hilfman.
Air NZ also needed sufficient fleet flexibility, but now has that with new Dreamliners joining the fleet. By the route’s November launch date, its Rolls-Royce engine issues will be behind it.
There is another peripheral personal link to the Windy City. While Christopher Luxon was working at Unilever, he was based in the wider Chicago area and is fond of the place, as he recalled while introducing one-time Illinois State Senator Barack Obama at the big private dinner function last week.
But this is a purely commercial decision, and a smart one. More than 200,000 Kiwis a year fly to the United States and many now go way beyond traditional Californian favourite spots.
Houston worked as an entry into the southern and eastern states and Chicago is a much more attractive destination in itself, but also a great launch pad for Kiwis heading for Canada and the northeast of the US.
Washington and New York are about a two-hour flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport — by all accounts a much more pleasant place to enter the US than Los Angeles.
New Zealand will also seem a lot closer for wealthy travellers who live along the US east coast.
Air NZ says the route could be worth $70 million to this country’s economy, and as it cops flak for retreating from some regional destinations, it makes the point that half of this will be spent outside the main centres.
Whether non-stop flights to Chicago will do much to assuage local anger is another matter, but Kiwis planning a US trip, and the tourist industry, will be smiling.