Passenger numbers through Auckland Airport are likely to remain static this summer as some capacity drops on a popular United States route but is added through South East Asia.
Airport data based on seats available, rather than slots airlines have taken, shows that from October to March capacity will be about 10% down on pre-Covid levels with transtasman routes even lower.
Auckland Airport, the country’s main gateway, reported an 87% increase in underlying profit to $276m in the year to June 30, and says traffic was 91% of pre-pandemic levels during the period.
The airport’s chief customer officer Scott Tasker earlier told the Herald per week there would be 514 international flights this summer from October to March
“At a really high level the picture is flat year on year.”
“We peaked early, we did well in the recovery, but since late last year others have continued to grow their capacity and connectivity and we’ve really flat-lined.”
Looking back to last month, the country’s overall international capacity through all airports was about 86% recovered.
“That really hasn’t moved since late last year. We’ve pretty much flat-lined as a country,” said Tasker.
In July capacity in Australia was 95% recovered versus 2019, Singapore 98%, Britain 100% and the US 106%.
South Korea and Japan – late to open borders like New Zealand – were now at 93%.
“We’ve been stuck at around [our] rate of recovery for a while now, which is clearly a little bit of a concern from the perspective of the inbound visitor industry.”
He said the Australian market was sluggish, which was of particular concern.
“While Aussies are travelling to the Queenstown Lakes District at are well above pre-Covid we’re not seeing the same sorts of numbers flying through Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch to the rest of the country.”
North America
Tasker said there would be an average of about 70 flights a week between Auckland Airport and the US and Canada with six direct routes by six airlines. While 13% up on pre-Covid levels it was down 12% on last summer when a surge of capacity from the big US airlines was deployed here, instead of other markets such as China. This led to price drops, especially in economy cabins.
The summer surge delivered record breaking US traveller numbers with arrivals of American visitors up 40%, he said in the company’s annual report.
“We also saw 11% more Kiwis flying the North American routes and enjoying fares 13% down on the previous year,‘‘ he said.
“When you consider that US travellers have the highest median daily spend of all visitors and contributed $1.4b to the economy in 2023, adding more connections through our country’s main international gateway can make a significant difference to the economy.”
Operations include Air Canada which will be four times a week to Vancouver from December to March and Air New Zealand will fly daily.
Because of aircraft shortages Air New Zealand had paused its Chicago flights. The airline would continue its New York flights at three times a week while rival Qantas is lifting frequency on the Sydney-Auckland-New York route from four to six times a week from October 10.
Capacity on the popular Los Angeles route will fall as United Airlines pulls off the route. It flew four times a week last summer. However, Air NZ would step up flights from 10 to 12 a week. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines would fly daily from Auckland to Los Angeles.
United and Air New Zealand would each fly daily to San Francisco. Air NZ will fly to Houston five times a week and American will fly to Dallas from November through March with a daily service from December through to March.
Hawaiian Airlines will from November resume its Honolulu service with three flights a week through to the end of April, in competition with Air NZ which also flies three times a week.
Asia and Middle East
Changes include highest ever frequency to Singapore with Singapore Airlines operating three a day and Air NZ once a day. Malaysia Airlines will fly eight a week to Kuala Lumpur.
China Airlines currently connects Auckland to Taipei via Brisbane five times a week, with plans to boost frequency to six times a week during summer and will also fly via Melbourne to Taiwan five times a week between December and February.
Air NZ and Cathay Pacific will fly daily to Hong Kong.
There will be 40 flights a week to mainland China during summer. Sichuan Airlines’ colourful livery featuring a distinctive giant panda returned to the runway in April and signalled the sixth airline connecting Auckland to seven destinations in China.
Seat capacity on routes to China between April and October 2024 is at 114% of 2019 levels, with the addition of two new routes (Haikou from Hainan Airlines and Hangzhou from China Eastern Airlines) helping to grow the connection between Auckland and New Zealand’s largest trading partner.
But there was no sign of Thai Airways returning for Bangkok flights or Philippine Airlines returning for Manila services, in spite of 140,000 Filipinos now living in New Zealand.
Emirates and Qatar Airways are both operating a daily service to Dubai and Doha, which is what they did last year.
In total there would be about 130 flights to Asia and the Middle East a week, about 6% up on last year, but still 12% down on pre-Covid levels.
Australia and the Pacific
In other markets, transtasman flying is the biggest single market with 245 flights a week. Tasker said seat capacity is flat compared to last year and still down 14% on pre-Covid levels. Virgin Australia helped keep fares down but hasn’t returned to flying between main centres, instead just flying into Queenstown.
While 1.3 million Australians visited New Zealand in the year to June 2024, representing an 86% recovery of pre-pandemic levels, there is a shortfall in volume that creates an opportunity for growth in our number one tourism market.
“Auckland Airport is working with tourism industry partners to ensure New Zealand retains its destination appeal to Australian tourists, who face trans-Tasman airfares that over the last year have varied from 50% to 90% higher than 2019 on routes to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch,” Tasker said in the company’s annual report.
China Airlines is adding capacity on the Tasman this summer. It currently operates a Taipei-Brisbane-Auckland service five times a week on an A350-900, increasing to six flights per week over summer and it will also start a Taipei-Melbourne-Auckland service five times a week. But other transtasman services have gone: AirAsia X has pulled out of New Zealand and Batik Air isn’t operating its Perth services this summer.
Tasker says the Pacific Islands capacity is largely flat this summer. While Air Vanuatu collapsed earlier this year Solomon Airlines this week announced it would add a new direct flight from Auckland to the popular Espiritu Santo. Flight days for Honiara-Vila-Auckland services will also change to enable greater same day connectivity to and from domestic destinations throughout New Zealand.
Tasker said domestic operations through Auckland Airport were down about 11% on pre-Covid as Air NZ’s A320-21 fleet was hit by engine issues and travel had been hit by a weak economy.
“In a global context what you see is, a number of airlines retired older fleet during Covid, that was clearly the right thing to do for a lot of them.”
Now there was a backlog of orders for aircraft makers so airline capacity was tight, leading to flat growth.
“New Zealand is still a high-risk place to launch a flight. If you don’t have any spare aircraft and you’re profitable on the routes that you have, you either have to stop flying somewhere or you’re waiting for a new delivery,” said Tasker.
He said New Zealand and Auckland was still an attractive place for people to visit and outbound demand was strong.
“The fundamentals are there, but, you know, capacity is definitely a problem.”
Air NZ, with 47% seat capacity through Auckland Airport, also had problems with engines on its long-haul Dreamliners and this meant the airline was battling to maintain status quo, let alone start new routes.
“They’re not able to make any bold moves with those issues. When you have carriers and that sort of situation, you’re then talking to foreign carriers to grow [and] a lot of carriers are pretty tapped out on fleet utilisation waiting for deliveries.”
He said there were signs of softening demand for outbound travel for those in their 40s.
“Those are people who have got children and mortgages. What we see is that the demographics who aren’t impacted by the cost of living and mortgages are retired older people.”
That was reflected by strong demand for premium cabins year round.
Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.
The industry faces challenges but hopes to bring newcomers and veterans together.