Air New Zealand’s 2018 by the numbers

Air New Zealand’s most frequent flyer took more than one flight per day in 2018, flying 371 times to cover a total distance of 639,000 kilometres.

The Auckland-based traveller’s 371 flights – covering the equivalent of 15 circuits of the earth – were among the more than 17 million passenger journeys Air New Zealand completed in 2018, the airline revealed on Friday.

Other Air New Zealand fun facts for 2018 include:

The airline’s top three frequent flyers together flew more than 1.25 million kilometres in the air;
More than 6.3 million meals were served, with Malay chicken with steamed rice the most popular main dish in economy class with 294,000 portions served;
1.3 million New Zealand beef and lamb meals were served;
Blackened king salmon with saffron potato mash and edamame was the most popular dish in the airline’s premium cabins;
More than seven million glasses of (exclusively) New Zealand wines were served onboard and in Air NZ lounges, with sauvignon blanc the preferred variety;
512,000 cans of beer were served inflight – up 7.5 per cent on the year prior;
Passengers enjoyed 15.3 million Air New Zealand lollies;
The Greatest Showman was the most viewed film inflight, seen almost 168,500 times;
And passengers offset nearly 27,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

An Air New Zealand infographic showing its 2018 by the numbers.

“We’d like to thank those who have travelled with us in 2018, which has had its fair share of challenges, as schedules have been disrupted by the impact of issues with the Rolls-Royce engines that power some of our 787s and significant weather events around the country,” Air New Zealand chief marketing and customer officer Mike Tod.