Business
Air New Zealand will add approximately 5,000 return seats a month to the United States and Canada as it further increases capacity to San Francisco and Los Angeles in California as well as Vancouver, British Columbia.
The added seats will commence in April 2013. Air New Zealand will operate daily round trip flights on the Auckland, New Zealand – San Francisco route.
To date, the San Francisco service has usually been operated five times per week. In addition to being an exciting destination in its own right, San Francisco offers connections to more than 100 other destinations in the United States.
Auckland to Los Angeles will also increase, with twice daily flights from April, compared with 12 flights per week at the same time this year.
Air New Zealand will continue to operate a third Los Angeles flight one day a week in peak demand periods around the July and October school holidays.
Replacing Losts Seats
The additional capacity will replace more than 75% of the seats lost from the California market earlier this year following the exit of one of Air New Zealand’s competitors.
The Auckland to Vancouver route will also see a significant boost in capacity with three round trip flights per week in off peak periods, there were previously two. Air New Zealand will operate five times a week over peak demand times from mid December to the end of February.
The increase builds on already boosted capacity increases on routes linking the United States and Canada, which was announced in March. Air New Zealand anticipates announcing further capacity additions beyond July 2013 in the coming weeks.
“This is a huge boost for the visitor economy from North America and offers additional opportunities for New Zealand exporters,” says Norm Thompson, Deputy CEO.