Travel binge: Auckland-Los Angeles return fares drop below $1000

Kiwis are travelling overseas in droves, with signs that bargain airfares will help stoke even more demand.

House of Travel is advertising in the Herald American Airlines return economy flights between Auckland and Los Angeles at $999 and non-stop return flights to its Dallas Fort-Worth base at $1195. Indirect flights to New York start at $1199 and Chicago at $1205.

Those prices are at pre-pandemic levels. House of Travel commercial director Brent Thomas said the lower airfares to the US were helping KIwi travellers facing more expensive holidays there because of the relative strength of the greenback.

Demand for travel through the US was also being boosted by bargain-hunting travellers opting to go that way to Europe, rather than the Middle East or Asia.

The sub-$1000 deal to Los Angeles is about half of what fares were a year ago. Thomas said airlines using more efficient planes could more easily offer the fares as fuel bills were lower.

Giant United States carrier American Airlines says it is adding 51 per cent more capacity into New Zealand this summer to meet strong demand from US tourists to see this country - but the increased services also mean more flights for Kiwis and lower prices to fly to the US.

American Airlines will add daily flights for summer between Los Angeles (LAX) and Auckland (AKL) just before Christmas, in addition to the daily Dallas-Fort Worth service it resumed last week. The LAX-AKL route is increasingly crowded, with Delta Air Lines last month starting daily flights, United Airlines starting services running three times a week and Air New Zealand flying up to 12 times a week.

New airlines and routes are bringing a boom in North American air connections at Auckland Airport, with 26 per cent more capacity available for travellers this summer than pre-pandemic.

Stats NZ data out today shows that in September, travel by New Zealand-resident travellers (those taking tripping holidays overseas) is 91 per cent of the pre-Covid-19 number of 279,800 in September 2019.

The September total of 254,900 was 84,000 up from the same month last year. In September - before the surge in new airline capacity - numbers travelling to Australia were up 28,000, China up 6700 and the US up 5000.

The data also shows inbound tourism is continuing to recover gradually.

In September overseas visitor arrivals were 224,900 in September were up 73,600 from the September 2022 month, with arrivals from China surging.

The September number of overseas visitor arrivals is 86 per cent of the pre-Covid-19 number of 261,800 in the same month in 2019.

ASB economists say while tourism inflows picked up in September, annual tourism arrivals are only back to 2014 levels, making a return to pre-Covid record tourism arrivals any time soon unlikely.

At the same time, strong pent-up demand for overseas travel by Kiwis points to a lower net boost to the New Zealand economy than earlier assumed.

International airfares roared up last year by 20 per cent in the March years, but Stats NZ CPI data showed they fell by close to 12 per cent between March and June of this year.

From early 2020, Covid-19-related international travel and border restrictions, both in New Zealand and overseas, severely curtailed travel.

New Zealand’s border restrictions were gradually eased from early last year.

Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.