Air New Zealand Air Points - Air NZ to cut prices to Pacific Islands




Mwenenzi
Jan 23, 04, 6:21 pm
From http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2792086a13,00.html

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Air NZ to cut prices to Pacific Islands around 20pc 24 January 2004

Air New Zealand plans to cut prices to the Pacific Islands from the middle of this year.


The airline said yesterday it planned to expand its successful formula used domestically and on trans-Tasman routes to Pacific Island destinations.

Going on the cuts that have occurred across the Tasman, customers can expect fares to drop by an average 20 percent, spokesman Mark Street said.

Again, assuming a similar response to the Tasman fare cuts, that should translate into a 10-11 percent increase in passengers.

Air New Zealand currently flies more than 100,000 customers between New Zealand and Pacific Island destinations annually.

The lower fare structure will be launched in March for travel commencing mid-year.

Chief executive Ralph Norris said the new structure on Pacific Island routes was a logical next step for the airline following the success of the domestic Express Class and Tasman Express services.

Air New Zealand simultaneously announced it was becoming a key sponsor of the annual Pasifika event celebrating Pacific Island culture, which takes place at Western Springs in Auckland from March 12-14.</font>

What is needed is the south pacific is a reasonably priced Air Pass, linked with a flight from NZ or Aust, that would let you go from one island group to another island group.

Many of the South Pacific nations have there own national airline that often goes to AKL or SYD. National pride seems to dictate an airline. Usually these airlines do not make a profit.

There is a massive market out there from backpackers who don’t want and won’t pay 5 star accommodation that the South Pacific nations and the airlines serving this area are ignoring


Kiwi Flyer
Jan 24, 04, 2:39 am
I think I saw somewhere a South Pacific Airpass - like Circle Pacific but more limited. IIRC required a long-haul flight on *A to NZ.

Kiwi Flyer
Jan 24, 04, 6:46 pm
Flight Centre is chartering an Airwork 737 for NZ to Fiji for cheap package deals. All economy and of course no airpoints http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif or that NZ service we know and love.

See NZ Herald (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3545383&thesection=news&thesubsection=general) and nbr (http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=8037&cid=5&cname=Asia) for example.


mad_atta
Jan 28, 04, 9:07 pm
If NZ are introducing some sort of 'Pacific Express', I wonder if this means they will completely change the way they run their Pacific Island flights. At the moment, many of them are operated by 763s flying AKL-[pacific island]-LAX, and consequently have the long-haul service style. Maybe we'll see smaller aircraft operating more frequent flights between NZ and the islands, with the 763s flying between LAX and the islands (without continuing on to NZ)... Or does it just mean NZ will hand over many of the NZ to Pacific Island services to Freedom Air? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif

Kiwi Flyer
Jan 28, 04, 9:14 pm
Its already been reported that Freedom Air intends to fly from Hamilton to Fiji, and in future from other centres.

IIRC there was a time Freedom used to fly to Fiji.



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