Air New Zealand provides update on flight schedule today

• 13 flights departing and 15 flights arriving into Auckland International Airport today
• Almost 600% increase in calls to the call centre compared to the same day last week
• More than 50 volunteers at international airport to help customers check in
• Further capability has been added to the manage booking function to allow some customers to self-serve

Air New Zealand Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer Captain David Morgan says the airline's international arrivals into and departures out of Auckland are on track to resume from 12noon today.

"As the airline works to process the backlog of customers and flights, the priority is to get customers who have been disrupted since the closure of the airport on flights as soon as we can."

"We know it hasn't been as easy process for customers with long wait times through to our call centre, but our team are doing their best. Yesterday we had over 31,500 calls, compared to 4,600 on Saturday last week. We're grateful for the patience of our customers while we work through this increase in calls".

To help customers self-serve, the airline has added further capability to the manage booking function allowing customers booked on an Air New Zealand service the ability to rebook their cancelled international flight over the next 20 days. This has been extended from 10 days due to limited capacity available.

At this stage, the airline will have 13 flights departing and 15 flights arriving into Auckland International Airport across the day. 

"Our teams have worked throughout the night to access and fix the equipment required to check customers in. Kiosks are in good shape; however, we still have significant damage to our baggage drop areas. We will be implementing a more manual process, which will take longer than usual.

"We've got volunteers from across the business donning their Koru t-shirts today and heading out to the airport to help our customers. We're doing everything we can to make this process as simple as we can, but customers should be aware there will be delays while they are checking in".

Advice to customers

"Our team is working around the clock to rebook customers. We thank them for their patience while we work through the enormous backlog we are faced with," says Captain Morgan.

The airline is advising those with non-urgent travel between now and Monday 30 January 2023 to make use of the flexibility policy. Customers can either hold their fare in credit or rebook in the same class of travel between Saturday 28 January 2023 and Monday 13 February 2023 without fare difference, penalty or service fees.

Customers can easily opt into credit via the Air New Zealand app or website in the Manage Booking tab, by selecting Request a Credit. They can also use the app or website to change their flights to another date and have their change fee waived, though a fare difference may apply.

Advice for customers booked to travel

• The Air New Zealand app and the arrivals and departures page is the best way for customers to see updated flight information
• Most customers are able to self-serve via the Manage Booking tab on the Air New Zealand website
• We will endeavour to notify and rebook customers to the next best alternative over the next 48 hours
• As the contact centre is experiencing extremely high volumes of calls we ask that only those with travel over the next 24 hours contact us directly.
• The airline's travel alerts page has the most up to date information on operating flights - our contact centre team do not have any more information than this
• If you are travelling out of Auckland, please do not travel to the airport until you receive an update that your flight is going ahead

Customers who booked through a travel agent or third-party online agent should contact them directly about making changes to their bookings or credit validity.

Note to media:

The airline is focused on managing these impacts for our customers and we're not able to provide specific flight or individual customer details, or impacted customer numbers at this time.

Ends

Issued by Air New Zealand Communications.

Email: media@airnz.co.nz │Phone: +64 21 747 320│Twitter: @AirNZMedia