TravTalk India Online Magazine
An indication of how important The Asian market is to Air New Zealand is reflected in the increase in its seat capacity from November this year to March 2025. The airline will add an extra 20,000 seats on its routes between Singapore and Auckland with 11,000 of those being in its Premium Economy and Business Premier cabins.
Hazel Jain
The latest arrivals data shows that there were 182,000 passengers travelling between India and New Zealand last year. About 87,000 of those passengers were Indian travellers, says Imogen Thornton, Head of South & Southeast Asia, Air New Zealand. “Together with our joint venture partner Singapore Airlines, we carried half of those travellers from India via Singapore. It’s a key part of our South and South East Asia network. An indication of how important this region is for us is reflected in the increase in the additional capacity that we’re adding to the route from November this year through to March 2025. We will be adding an additional 20,000 seats between Singapore and Auckland, 11,000 which are in our Premium Economy and Business Premier cabins,” she said.
Plans for India
Partnerships are key to the airline’s success and are part of Air New Zealand’s ongoing strategy in the Indian market. Thornton said, “Our partnership with Singapore Airlines allows Indian travellers to connect from its eight ports across India through into Singapore, where together with SIA we offer 4-5 daily flights out of Singapore into Auckland or Christchurch. Once in New Zealand, travellers can connect to Air New Zealand’s 20 domestic destinations.” The airline also works closely with Tourism New Zealand to continue educating the trade and customers about the destination. “Over 70 per cent of our bookings come through our trade partners and we appreciate their support,” she adds.Speaking about opportunities in the Indian market, Thornton says that more capacity on Air New Zealand services means more options for Indian customers to book premium seats on their journey to New Zealand. “Another opportunity that we see is to educate Indian travellers on the choices they have when they fly in Economy cabin with us. We offer multiple options from Economy Stretch to our very popular Economy Skycouch, a full row of economy seats that folds out into a lie-flat bed,” she informed.
Indian aviation scenario
After attending the CAPA Conference in Delhi recently, Thornton was impressed with the ambition by the growth of the Indian aviation sector. “It was impressive to see how airlines, airports and other industry bodies are collaborating. The future is bright for Indian aviation industry. Strong partnerships are key to success in this industry, in particular strong relations with trade partners. We recently hosted 23 trade partners from India in New Zealand at the annual TRENZ conference. Many of them also attended post or pre-conference Fams,” she commented. Soon, we will see a refresh of the Air New Zealand cabin product. “Later this year, the first of our current 787s will be updated with our new interior product, then next year, we’re expecting our first new Dreamliner to arrive from Boeing,” Thornton revealed. “70 per cent of our bookings out of India are made by our travel agency partners, so our trade relationships are incredibly important to us. We want to thank them for their ongoing support,” she concluded.
