Air New Zealand is steadily adding international capacity and is currently running at about 40% of pre-Covid levels, but the airline faces sharply rising fuel costs which will inevitably raise ticket prices.
Air New Zealand’s chief customer and sales officer, Leanne Geraghty, told the BEIA MEETINGS 2022 convention in Christchurch yesterday that Tasman routes have “proved to be incredibly strong”, with high demand right through to the July school holidays and beyond. The airline expects 65% of pre-Covid capacity on trans-Tasman routes by July, rising to 70% shortly afterwards.
With fuel costs soaring, Geraghty confirmed that fares would have to rise but would be kept in check as far as possible.
Along with all travel-related industries, staffing is a challenge and the airline is adding capacity in tandem to hiring staff. It is now serving 19 international destinations, increasing to 27 in July, by which time it should be adding an extra 40,000 seats a week on its international network. It is seeking over 1000 additional staff over the next few months, having hired 2000 staff last year.
Chief executive Greg Foran was quoted in New Zealand media yesterday as saying it now cost twice as much to fuel a Dreamliner for an Auckland to Los Angeles flight than it did in 2020.
In March, the airline said fuel prices and inflation were pushing up ticket prices on international flights by up to 5%.
Geraghty said it was fantastic to see international bookings flow in as Air New Zealand restarted 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 one in eight customers called us before travel, now we are seeing around one in three. 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 eight 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.”
What are customers calling about?
- 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?
- Changes to bookings
How can I adjust my journey, what does my schedule change mean, I have Covid/what happens if I catch Covid?
- Airpoints queries
Account status, can I gift/share my Airpoints, I’d like to use my recognition upgrade, what are the tier benefits?
- 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?
Written by Peter Needham
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