Air NZ reschedules for efficiency

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Tuesday 14th November 2000

Air New Zealand is looking to improve its operating efficiency by making more use of its Star Alliance network.

The airline, which is fighting a battle of rising fuel costs, a lower dollar and a tough Australian market, has announced changes to its northern summer schedule and is planning to expand codesharing arrangements on a number of its Star Alliance partners airlines.

Under the new schedule Air NZ will increase the number of its flights to the US and Japan, but will cancel its twice-weekly service between Los Angeles and Frankfurt at the end of March and offer codeshare flights with Lufthansa.

On the Pacific route, capacity between Auckland and Honolulu will increase by two extra flights a week, but the service between Los Angeles and Honolulu will cease, replaced by codeshare with United Airlines.

The general manager of Air NZ International, Grant Lilly, says the changes to the northern summer schedule fit with the company's plan to create a more efficient network and put more of the airline's capacity on core sectors such as Japan and the US.

"We are concentrating on geographic regions where we have marked strengths, rather than spreading our operations across the globe."

He says airline will continue to run its European sales and marketing operations out of Belgium, and will keep a sales force in Germany.

Mr Lilly says Air NZ's ability to market its services will be enhanced by capitalising on the Star Alliance's distribution strength and market presence in Europe.

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