In response to expected high demand in the coming weeks, Air New Zealand will lease an aircraft and crew from Wamos Air to reinforce its operations during the austral summer.
Since 15 November, the Spanish airline has been operating flights between Auckland (AKL) and Perth (PER) in Western Australia with an Airbus A330-200 and its own crews. The wet lease agreement will run until 17 February 2023. Air New Zealand will continue to market the services.
The aircraft, registered as EC-NCK, will replace Air New Zealand’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which is regularly used on the route. Wamos Air’s Airbus A330-200 has a two-class configuration and a total of 280 seats: 260 in Economy and 20 Business Class seats.
Reinforcing capacity for the summer
The move is part of the New Zealand carrier’s efforts to bolster its capacity for the upcoming southern hemisphere summer season. The airline said it expects to carry about 2.8 million passengers between 15 December 2022 and 31 January 2023.
During the same period last season, Air New Zealand carried 1.1 million passengers. As such, the company’s projections and confirmed bookings for the coming months indicate a marked recovery in activity.
«Over recent weeks, we have seen a strong increase in bookings and over the summer, we will be operating at pre-pandemic levels», said Alex Marren, the airline’s COO. «Over the summer peak, we are also adding a pool of casual employees across our airports to help customers on our busiest days», he added.
«With a busy summer season ahead, this temporary measure will help us maintain our schedule», Air New Zealand said in a press release.
See also: Auckland gets a boost in North American connections for the austral summer
