Air New Zealand has announced that it will add capacity to its domestic network from January next year due to growing demand and an expected surge in traffic due to the Rubgy World Cup.
The airline said in a statement lodged with the Australian Securities Exchange that it plans to increase domestic capacity by 10.5 per cent from January 2011, which it says has seen the highest load factor on record.
“We will be increasing this again later in the year to 26 per cent additional capacity for the duration of the World Cup, in response to the forecast demand from both Kiwis and overseas travellers,” the airline’s general manager domestic airline John Whittaker said.
The capacity increase will come in part from the arrival of its first new domestic configuration A320s, which seat 171 passengers compared to 133 on the current domestic fleet of Boeing 737-300s. In addition, the airline will extend the lease on one of its 737s by an additional eight months.
