More flights needed, resort owner says
More flights from New Zealand to the Cook Islands are needed to meet ‘‘enormous demand’’ from tourists, a resort owner says.
Quarantine-free travel from New Zealand to the Cook Islands started yesterday but the first flight isn’t until today, with Air New Zealand flight NZ940 scheduled to depart Auckland for Rarotonga at 8.55am. The flight, serviced by a 302-seat Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, is a sell out, an Air New Zealand spokesman said.
Pre-Covid there were four international carriers flying about 24 flights per week into Rarotonga but now Air New Zealand will have the route to itself, starting with two return flights per week before ramping up to daily Dreamliner flights from July 1.
Tata Crocombe, who owns and manages The Rarotongan Beach Resort, Sanctuary Rarotonga and Aitutaki Lagoon, said it was welcoming about a dozen guests from New Zealand today.
The return of international tourists would be celebrated with dancers, string bands, champagne and flower garlands, he said.
With twice daily flights the industry will be operating about 3 per cent capacity. ‘‘It’s a start, but it’s just not sustainable.’’
At this time of year pre-pandemic it would have been at about 85 per cent capacity, he said.
He said there was ‘‘enormous demand’’ from travellers out of New Zealand wanting to visit the Cook Islands. ‘‘It’s kind of a head scratcher as to why we haven’t got more flights.’’
When Air New Zealand increased frequency to daily flights the Cook Islands would still have a fraction of the air capacity it once had, he said.
Prior to Covid-19 Air New Zealand, Jetstar, Virgin Australia and Air Tahiti Nui were operating international flights into Rarotonga, and it had services from
Auckland, Christchurch, Sydney, Los Angeles and Tahiti. ‘‘Now we’ve only got one carrier with one service from Auckland. It’s a start, but it’s not sufficient to sustain the Cook Islands economy.’’
Cook Islands Tourism New Zealand and Australia general manager Graeme West said airlines were perhaps being ‘‘conservative’’ about deploying capacity to the Cook Islands because they had learnt from their mistake of putting too much capacity on the trans-Tasman route initially when New Zealand opened to quarantine-free travel from Australia.
As airlines saw demand increase they would continue to put capacity on, he said. West said there had been an ‘‘exceptional booking pattern’’ over the past few weeks but future demand would be dependent on air capacity. He expected load factors on the daily Dreamliner flights to be high until there were more flights added or competition arrived.