Passengers boost for Air NZ

Air New Zealand said yesterday it carried 6 per cent more passengers in May compared with a year earlier.

For the financial year to date, short haul passenger numbers increased by 4.5 per cent and long haul by 13.3 per cent.

It said its North American and UK passenger loadings increased 4 percentage points on May 2007, with capacity up 4.5 per cent.

Its new Vancouver service continued to perform well at the seasonally adjusted frequency of three times a week.

Passengers carried in the domestic market increased 9 per cent compared with May 2007 on an 8.4 per cent increase in capacity.

The Tasman/Pacific Island passenger load factor dropped 2.4 percentage points on May 2007.

This was largely due to less pricing promotions in May 2008, the company said.

Short haul passenger load factors fell 1 percentage point to 73.1 per cent.

Long haul passenger load factors in May increased 2.5 percentage points to 73.8 per cent.

Group-wide yields for the year-to-date were flat on last year.

Air NZ shares closed down 1c yesterday at $1.12.

- NZPA