Air New Zealand Rotorua to Auckland: Woman frustrated after airline cuts daily services

A Rotorua woman believes the city of almost 80,000 people is ‘‘really getting done over’’ after Air New Zealand reduced its Rotorua to Auckland return services over time from up to five flights per day to between two and three.

In Tauranga, the airline operates between six and nine return services to Auckland each day, which the woman says, in her view, is “not proportionate” or “fair” based on the population size.

Air New Zealand says its Rotorua services are “heavily reliant” on international tourism demand and it would be able to grow its services as tourism grows.

The airline also says there are more seats on the two to three flights it operates daily now compared with when it operated up to five flights per day, due to the size of the aircraft.

The woman, who spoke on the condition she was not identified, said she and her husband “frequently” flew for work to Auckland, Queenstown, and Australia.

The woman, who said she had been booking flights for 20 years, said Air New Zealand used to have a “great” service from Rotorua to Auckland but the airline had changed how often it flew.

The Rotorua Daily Post checked the Air New Zealand website for flights from Rotorua to Auckland in May. It showed the two daily flights departed Rotorua at 9.35am and 5.50pm. On Fridays, it had an additional flight at 2.20pm.

Rotorua Airport has two flights to Auckland daily except for Fridays when it has three flights. Photo / Andrew Warner

The woman said the lack of flight options affected her husband’s ability to get connecting flights to Sydney, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast.

She said it also ultimately “cuts us out of a heap of domestic flights”.

The woman said she was restricted in what connecting flight she could take from Auckland to Queenstown after flying from Rotorua to Auckland on the 9.35am flight.

“You only have access to what’s left and [for me] that’s often not convenient timing and not convenient pricing.

In her view: “So we’re really getting done over in Rotorua.”

The woman said she was picking up her husband from Tauranga Airport in the evening after he gets back from Australia. Photo / Andrew Warner

The woman said she had been driving to Tauranga at 8pm to pick up her husband when he returned from Australia.

“When he’s going to Australia, I have to take him over there or he has to drive to Auckland.”

The woman said the airline was a 51 per cent government-owned company “and [I believe] their job is to provide a regional service”.

“And when we can’t catch the flights we want and we have to go to Tauranga and drive to Auckland, [in my view] that’s not a regional service.”

As of June 30, 2022, the estimated population for Rotorua was 76,800 people while Tauranga City’s population was 158,300.

In her view, “based on population, that’s not balanced ... it’s not proportionate and it’s not fair”.

‘Diminished’ passenger demand

Rotorua Business Chamber chief executive Bryce Heard said: “We have been concerned for a very long time about the Rotorua-Auckland link because it has been diminished and there’s been a lot of cancelled flights.”

Heard said, in his view, “it was a demand-supply-driven issue”.

“If you go back 20 or 30 years, there was a big demand for flights to Auckland. That has diminished. More people are driving, more people and working online ... and the passenger demand has dropped away and the flights have commensurated with that.

“We could criticise Air New Zealand but it’s not going to help the demand which is the driver of the issue.”

Air New Zealand responds

In a statement, Air New Zealand domestic general manager Iain Walker said the airline operated between two and three return services daily from Rotorua to Auckland compared with “three or four return services” daily in 2019.

“Just like the region itself, our Rotorua services are heavily reliant on international tourism demand, which has been impacted by Covid.

“Tourism is continuing to rebuild, and as it does, we will be able to continue to grow our services.”

Walker said the airline operated between three and five return services from Rotorua to Auckland per day in 2008, but this was on a much smaller aircraft, which had 19 seats, compared with the aircraft used today with 50 seats.

This equalled between 57 and 95 seats available to book each day compared with today’s two to three flights offering 100 to 150 seats each day.

Services from Rotorua to Wellington and Christchurch had returned to “close to pre-pandemic levels”, meaning those flying from Rotorua had “plenty of options” to connect to other domestic ports or international destinations, Walker said.

He said the company was constantly monitoring demand for all of its services to ensure it had the right amount of capacity.

“We also continue to work closely with stakeholders on supporting growth in international demand and will revisit capacity as demand changes.”

Over the past year, the airline had operated more than 5000 flights in and out of Rotorua, carrying more than 200,000 passengers, Walker said.

Walker said the airline operated between six and nine return services from Tauranga to Auckland daily.

Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.