Airline optimism rising overseas

NEW Zealand is looking increasingly isolated as airline capacity cranks up around the world.

Qantas has announced an earlierthanexpected restart to international flying and, while it is choppy, route growth is picking up around the world.

Figures from airline analysts OAG this past week show capacity inching towards preCovid capacity.

‘‘In many markets optimism is now flooding back; even Australia is beginning to plan for a reopening,’’ OAG analyst John Grant said.

‘‘New Zealand is now increasingly looking isolated both geographically and in response to Covid19.’’

There was no detail of the plan to open up New Zealand with the world in the Government’s Covid19 response announcement on Friday, disappointing tourism and airline groups.

The United States and Canada and much of Australia will open up to vaccinated travellers as traffic recovers in much of Europe despite Covid19 case numbers surging in Britain and Russia.

Singapore is opening up further even though its cases have also increased over the past month.

Through to the end of the year there are forecast to be 3.7 billion trips in the system compared with 3.2 billion in the past year and 5.7 billion in 2019.

This indicated ‘‘a recovery of sorts’’ might be under way, OAG said.

In Europe, Eurocontrol is now projecting flight activity could be back at 2019 levels as soon as 2023 after previously projecting this would happen in 2024 at the earliest. British Airways announced last week it was recruiting crew.

Seats are, however, being quickly taken out of the system in big numbers by airlines in response to weak patches of demand and Covid19 restrictions which are still being imposed suddenly in some countries.

On Friday, Qantas announced a significant return to international flying, the rehiring of crew and the bringing back to service of some of its Airbus A380 aircraft sooner than expected.

In response to the opening up of New South Wales, which has met a 70% doubledose vaccination target, Singapore Airlines is also resuming daily services between Sydney and its home base using its flagship A380.

In this country, Air New Zealand will operate some more ‘‘red’’ effectively oneway flights into quarantinefree parts of Australia before Christmas.

It will also resume a Sydney to Los Angeles via Auckland service from next month, aimed at Australians who will no longer have to quarantine on their return.

Following last month’s managed isolation and quarantine failure, at a time when the Government’s jab programme had only 22% of eligible New Zealanders fully vaccinated, the airline’s domestic operation was severely cut after roaring into life for much of this year when people travelled around the country in big numbers.

The restrictions have hit every part of the aviation system, Auckland Airport on Thursday last week reporting passenger numbers through its terminals were last month less than half those of 1966, the year it was opened.

Qantas has said it hopes to resume transtasman flying in December, but this will depend on this country’s border settings.

While there was no update on international travel in the ‘‘traffic light’’ system announcement, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had said just before the Delta outbreak the country would move to new border settings using a riskbased approach.

Board of Airline Representatives executive director Justin TigheUmbers said New Zealand’s airline sector was experiencing the worst conditions it had faced the entire pandemic and it was not clear when they would end. —