New Zealand Aviation NEWS

Air New Zealand Earnings to Fall due to Qantas Airlines.  Air New Zealand's earnings are poised to come under significant pressure as a result of Qantas Airways' strategy of launching regional Jetstar flights in New Zealand and threatening to enter the monopoly New Zealand-mainland North America market in partnership with American Airlines, analysts say. A Credit Suisse analysis has revealed Kiwi passengers in economy class are paying on average 38 per cent more per kilometre on non-stop flights between New Zealand the mainland US compared with what Australian passengers on Qantas pay per kilometre on the longer flights between Sydney and Melbourne and Los Angeles. The Qantas figures were translated to New Zealand dollars to conduct the exercise. The overall premium of 15.4 per cent received by Air NZ on trans-Pacific flights is lower in part because the Kiwi carrier's flights have a smaller proportion of business-class seats than Qantas.  Qantas and Ameri...

A couple of months ago, Air New Zealand ran into a bit of a media storm after a Christchurch woman realised she could not book a flight using her father's shared Airpoints, just a week after his death. At the time the airline said it was "standard procedure" for membership rewards accounts to be closed "on receipt of notification of the member's death". As stated in the scheme's terms and conditions, the airline said, a member's points cannot be controlled by another person. "Airpoints Dollars are owned by the member and those not redeemed at the time of the member's death are cancelled unless a formal claim is made by the beneficiary of the member's estate." The airline's customer service team later backtracked on "null and void" Airpoints, and in the Christchurch family's case, Jaclyn Philpott and her mother were able to use her deceased father's Airpoints account. What a legal and emotional qua...