Air New Zealand adds yet more school holiday seats

Invercargill is one of the destinations that will enjoy additional Air New Zealand flights during the July school holidays.
(Airways NZ)

Air New Zealand is to add another 268 one-way services to its schedule during the July school holidays, in addition to the increases announced last week.

The new batch of flights to regional areas will operate between 6 July and 19 July and includes 14 return services between Wellington-Nelson and 13 services between Christchurch-Invercargill and Christchurch-Palmerston North.

Other destinations covered include Blenheim, Dunedin, Gisborne, Hamilton, Kerikeri, Napier, New Plymouth, Rotorua, Timaru, Tauranga and Whangarei.

Air New Zealand general manager of networks Scott Carr said, “It’s clear lots of people are looking to have a winter escape in the coming weeks so our team has been working to add extra capacity where we can on our regional routes.”

Australian Aviation previously reported how the airline will actually offer more capacity on its Auckland-Queenstown route during the July school holidays next month than it did last year.

Air New Zealand will also operate 16 return services to and from Auckland and Christchurch between 1 July and 19 July, reflecting 10,000 additional seats.

The school holiday announcements come in addition to a broader increase in domestic capacity from 20 to 55 per cent in July and August, including restarting its direct A320 service between Auckland and Invercargill.

Air New Zealand is now operating to all 20 domestic ports it serviced pre-coronavirus and has dropped social distancing in line with the country lowering its coronavirus restrictions to ‘Alert Level 2’.