Air New Zealand has begun operating daily services from Auckland to Tokyo and Shanghai.
Responsing to strong growth in the Asian market, services to Shanghai have progressively increased since the route was introduced in 2006, while the return to daily Tokyo flights comes after three years of reduced capacity.
Air New Zealand’s deputy CEO Norm Thompson said: “China is now New Zealand’s second largest inbound tourist market, after Australia, having recently overtaken both North America and the UK.”
“The Japanese market is now showing signs of strong recovery after it was hit very hard by both the Christchurch earthquake and Japan tsunami in 2011 and we have continued to increase capacity on the Tokyo route in line with increased demand,” Thompson added.
