WELLINGTON: Air New Zealand passenger numbers continued to rise in September and the airline carried 1.5 million passengers in the month, a 4.7% rise on the corresponding month last year. In the financial year to date, Air NZ carried slightly more than four million passengers, a 5.2% increase on the previous corresponding period. However, it was not all good news for the airline. For the financial year to date, short-haul passenger revenue divided by total capacity — revenue per available seat kilometre (RASK) — fell nearly 6% while long-haul RASK fell 12.2%. Removing the impact of foreign exchange, group-wide RASK fell 9.6% and group-wide yields for the financial year to date decreased 8.4% on the same period last year.
Revenue passenger kilometres in September were up 6.8% on a capacity increase of 8.2%, figures released by the airline this week showed. Short-haul passenger numbers increased 4.2%. In the domestic market, demand increased 7.7% with capacity increasing 7.9% due to increased services on the Auckland-Queenstown route. Tasman-Pacific demand increased 1.2% while capacity increased 3.9%. Long-haul passenger numbers increased 8.4% in September compared with September last year. Demand was up 9.7% and capacity rose 10.8%. Load factor on long-haul routes was 86.5%, down 0.9%. On Americas-United Kingdom routes, demand increased 13.5% with capacity increasing 13% due to the Auckland-Houston and Auckland-Buenos Aires routes.
That was partly offset by reduced frequency on the Auckland-Los Angeles route. The load factor fell 0.5% to 87.9%. On Asia-Japan-Singapore routes, demand increased 3.4% and capacity increased by 7.3%, reflecting the seasonal Auckland-Ho Chi Minh City route. Loads fell 3.1% to 84.2%. The airline confirmed it would operate a second season of non-stop services between Auckland and Vietnam. From June 24 to October 25 next year, passengers would travel on a Dreamliner aircraft. For the 2017 season, Air NZ would operate two non-stop services a week from Auckland to Ho Chi Minh City using the 302-seat Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
