Covid 19 coronavirus: Air NZ boss confident in transtasman bubble despite latest cases

Air New Zealand aircraft on the tarmac at the Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham

By RNZ

Air New Zealand's chief executive says he is not concerned about any threat to transtasman travel from three recent Covid-19 cases in Auckland.

A cleaner and two security guards who work at the Grand Millennium MIQ facility have tested positive.

It's six days until the opening of the transtasman bubble.

Greg Foran told First Up that cases will be popping up for some time yet, and both New Zealand and Australia will need to learn how to deal with them.

"It doesn't mean that at some point that won't become more serious and we have to deal with either a pause or a suspension," Foran said.

He's confident the bubble will proceed as planned.

Last week the airline received a large number of bookings across the Tasman for April and May, he said.

Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne are the strongest-performing destinations but there's also been growth in Queenstown, he said.

"I'm looking forward to the Cook Islands coming on soon," Foran said, but added he doesn't have any more information on this than the public do.

"It starts to give a real vibe in the business that we've moved off this survival period that we've been in and we're now starting to revive the business."

In December, the airline decided to bring back just over 300 of the crew it had let go because of the pandemic and train them up in preparation for a transtasman bubble.

"It doesn't happen in weeks, it's usually months. The big machine's been at it but we're excited to actually be rebuilding as opposed to winding down."

Foran said travellers to Australia will need to wear a mask but they will not need to social distance.

The crew on these flights will only be working on transtasman bubble flights, he said.

More than 50 per cent of Air New Zealand staff have been vaccinated.

There are currently 15 of Air New Zealand's Boeing 777 planes stored in the desert in the United States.

"If and when we decide to bring them back we're going to need months and months to bring them back.

"You've then got to get all of your crew trained and even things like when a plane has been parked up in the desert, you've got to make sure things like the life rafts in the planes, you know all of the material on them suddenly hasn't expired and gone out of date, so it takes a while."