Air New Zealand to boost contact centre staff as Kiwis start to book travel

Air New Zealand Chief Customer and Sales Officer Leanne Geraghty says, "Bookings on our domestic network are increasing as people start to travel again, and it's fantastic to see international bookings flow in as we restart popular routes like Honolulu, Vancouver and San Francisco. Just this week, we operated more than 200 international flights, the highest in a long time.

"For a lot of our customers, these trips will be their first in more than two years, and it's different to what it used to be. The new travel environment is complex, and what we're hearing from our customers is that they have a preference to speak to a person rather than booking online or using an app.

"Previously around 1 in 8 customers called us before travel, now we are seeing around 1 in 3. This is leading to not only more calls, but also longer call times, with the average call handling time being around 16 minutes - approximately 50% longer than pre-Covid. While we have been recruiting into our contact centre since December last year, we just can't keep up with the number of calls."

The airline is looking to add 200 additional consultants, taking the total to more than 450 dedicated staff answering customer queries once training is complete in 8 weeks' time. It's also redeploying other staff to help out where possible.

"At the moment, it's taking us a lot longer to respond to customers than we would like, with some waiting hours to speak to someone. This is frustrating for our customers and stressful for our teams and we'd like to thank everyone for their patience. We want to get back to providing world class customer service and we're asking our loyal customers to bear with us over the next couple of months as we ramp up and get new team members onboard."

Recruitment is underway for Contact Centre Consultants. The airline is encouraging people to get in touch if this sounds like you.

What are customers calling about?

 1. New bookings
How to use credits, when will a specific route be back up and running, connections with other airlines, can I use my Airpoints?

 2. Changes to bookings
How can I adjust my journey, what does my schedule change mean, I have Covid/what happens if I catch Covid?

 3. Airpoints queries
Account status, can I gift/share my Airpoints, I'd like to use my recognition upgrade, what are the tier benefits?

 4. Preparing for travel
What are the travel requirements for my destination, can I travel with my pet, seat or bag requests, what are the different fare rules?

 Customers may also be able to find the answer to their query on our website.

• Monitor the status of your flight here.
• View, change or cancel your flight bookings via Manage Bookings.
• Find more information about credits here, or view and use yours with our online credit tool.
• See our Travel Requirements page for details about NZ domestic and international destinations.
• If you need a pre-departure test to travel, check out these helpful pointers.
• Visit our COVID-19 information hub to read about what to expect when travelling.

We also recommend customers download the Air NZ mobile app to stay up to date with bookings.

If you're an Airpoints member, sign in to your account to tailor your travel alerts.

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Issued by Air New Zealand Communications.

Email: media@airnz.co.nz │ Twitter: @AirNZMedia