Air NZ gears up, Jetstar boosts Cook Is, A380 makeovers and more

Air New Zealand adds holiday capacity
Air New Zealand is boosting its domestic and international services in advance of the holiday period and next year. An extra 180,000 extra domestic seats will be put on between November and March 2018. A third of this will be on the Auckland-Queenstown route with eight additional return flights a week. Auckland-Christchurch will have six additional return services (40,000 seats), while Auckland-Dunedin and Auckland-Wellington will also have extra A320 flights.

Seven regional destinations – Nelson, Tauranga, Napier, Palmerston North, Kerikeri, New Plymouth and Taupo – will also receive boosts ranging between 2100 and 16,500 seats. Chief revenue officer Cam Wallace says the airline expects to sell one million of these seats for less than $100 over the five months. 

Internationally, the Auckland-Vancouver rounte will receive a near 20% capacity boost from January through to July next year. The daily operation will move to eight times a week during the first half of the January peak period. The frequency will also increase over the shoulder season, moving from five weekly services to daily during February, and increasing to five services a week in March and April (up from four) and four weekly services from May to mid-June (up from three).

Almost 60,000 additional seats will be added to Auckland-Honolulu from April to October next year, an increase of 75%. The extra 94 return services means moving to daily flights and up to nine services a week during the July school holidays. Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners will be used for the majority of the year, with a change to Boeing 777-200s during the July and September holiday periods.

Cook Islands tourists hit record numbers
Jetstar is taking credit for a big boost in Cook Islands tourist numbers from New Zealand and Australia. The airline started an Auckland-Rarotonga service in March 2016, boosting the average monthly number of visitors by 16%. A record more than 155,000 tourists travel there annually, with 105,000 coming from New Zealand, an increase of nearly 17%. Australian visitor arrivals rose 5% to more than 24,500 in the year to June. Jetstar runs three Auckland-Rarotonga services a week.

Superjumbo makeover
Singapore Airlines is giving its Airbus 380s an extreme makeover 10 years after introducing them. New seats and other fittings across all classes, and an upgraded in-flight entertainment system, are among the enhancements to 14 of its 19 existing A-380s. The five oldest will be returned to lessors when their time is up next year. In other changes, the first-class suites – now located on the lower deck – will be moved to the upper deck and reduced in number from 12 to between six and eight.

Qatar boosts Vietnam flights
Qatar Airways isn’t letting the Arab boycott stand in the way of rapid expansion plans. It has added the Vietnamese cities of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi (pictured) as well as to the Thai holiday destination of Krabi. The new Hanoi service will be daily and non-stop from Doha. It is also in addition to the existing daily flights from Doha via Bangkok. Ho Chi Minh City’s daily service will increase by three flights a week to 10 from January 1, 2018. Krabi will get a daily service from December 1. Qatar plans 26 new destinations between now and the end of 2018, including Chiang Mai (Thailand), Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco and Santiago (Chile).

Meanwhile, Qatar has entered a new codeshare agreement with LATAM Airlines Brazil. This will provide passengers with connections between São Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport and 25 domestic cities in Brazil, including Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Campo Grande, Foz do Iguaçu and Recife.

Belavia signs with Emirates
Belarus flag carrier Belavia Belarusian Airlines and Emirates Airline have implemented interline, electronic interline and special pro-rate agreements. Passengers from both carriers are able to fly between Minsk and Dubai via several transfer points, including Moscow, St Petersburg, Istanbul, Paris and Frankfurt. Minsk-based Belavia also has similar agreements with Etihad Airways, Flydubai and Qartar Airways. 

Lufthansa's first A350 for China
Lufthansa is upgrading its Munich-Hong Kong service to an Airbus A350-900 in September. This is the first Chinese destination to get the new aircraft, which is already deployed to New Delhi, Boston and Mumbai, India. The A350 will also fly to a fifth destination with the re-introduction of the Munich-Singapore route, which is due to start in March 2018.

Busy Israeli airport
Business is booming at Israel’s Ovda Airpott near the Red Sea resort of Eilat. The number of international passengers from Europe has risen 33% since the start of 2017. Most of the flights are operated by budget carriers – Ireland’s Ryanair, Ural Airlines, Russia Airlines, Hungary's Wizz Air, KLM-Air France's Transavia, Finnair and the UK's Monarch. The coming winter season is expected to see 88 flights a week, with the addition of Scandinavian carrier SAS, Ukraine Air and Russia's Rossiya FV.

Route news of the week
United Airlines will end its San Francisco-Hangzhou route on October 16, with the China-US leg. This route runs three times a week using Boeing 787-9 aircraft. Hong Kong Airlines has delayed the launch of its Hong Kong-Los Angeles service to December 18. It will runs four times a week, increasing to daily from January 14. Hong Kong Airlines’ new A350-900 will make its first revenue flight, Hong Kong-Bangkok, on September 15. Hong Kong-Shanghai Hongqiao and 
Hong Kong-Taipei Taoyuan will follow. Malaysia Airlines plans to expand its Kuala Lumpur-Mumbai service by an additional three weekly flights from November 1, taking the total to 17 weekly. Capacity will also expand through the addition of five A330-300 services a week.

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