A transtasman price war yesterday saw Air New Zealand fares as low as $13 as Australian budget airline Jetstar launched new services with $89 one-way tickets.
Jetstar, a Qantas subsidiary, marked the announcement of flights from Auckland from next April with the cut-price website fare deal for 89
minutes.
A spokesman said he could not release details of how many $89 seats went, but said there were thousands.
The $89 offer applied to travel between April 28 and June 18, on selected days and flights and excluded travel on public and school holidays.
Despite the limited nature of the fares being clearly stated, some travellers were disappointed.
"Tried for 35 minutes to buy fares to the Gold Coast for two adults and an infant. Each time after entering all the details in and then the credit card info we were notified the seats were gone," said one who emailed the Herald.
Another said: "I just wasted 20 minutes of my life trying to book one of their cheap fares. I rang their call centre to complain and their phone operator insisted they did not fly out of Auckland."
Another would-be traveller said the cheapest flights he could get on weekends were $145 each way.
Jetstar's standard cheap fare will be the industry norm of $199.
Air New Zealand spokesman Bruce Parton said it was not surprising Qantas was introducing another brand as it was struggling on the Tasman and domestic routes with on-time performance.
Air New Zealand yesterday offered a limited number of $13 seats to Sydney from Hamilton and Auckland which sold in minutes.
About 1600 people a minute were logging on to the Air New Zealand site yesterday morning, a spokesman said.
Jetstar has been flying across the Tasman from Christchurch for the past three years and its expansion into Auckland could lead to domestic services.
While competition on the Tasman route has grown in the past year, Flight Centre's product manager, Andrew Stark, said there was still room for new players.
"More competition will mean lower airfares. That will stimulate more demand ... There will be great deals to be had."
