Air New Zealand says it is undertaking one of the biggest customer recoveries in the airline’s history as it tries to rebook customers stranded by closure of Auckland Airport in floods.
Almost 9000 customers were affected by the shutdown of New Zealand’s biggest international airport. With few spare seats to rebook passengers on, the airline has sought to upgauge aircraft or fly additional services to clear the backlog.
In Singapore where stranded passengers were told that there were few available seats until the end of February, the airline has worked with their partners Singapore Airlines to put passengers from the delayed NZ283 onto an A380 jumbo, adding 200 places for travellers.
Operators Singapore Airlines say they upgauged SQ285 / NZ3285 from a Boeing 777 at the request of Air New Zealand, and is due to arrive with its additional passengers shortly after 1pm today.
Similarly an additional Air New Zealand service from Los Angeles to bring an additional 300 seats for passengers still in the US this week and NZ1 was making a stop over in Fiji to take on 100 extra passengers and additional fuel to return home.
There will be an additional service from Niue on Thursday to help stranded passengers.
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Air New Zealand’s chief of customer and sales, Leanne Geraghty says the airline had rebooked 7800 passengers and was working to get the remaining travellers home.
“We also know there will be some customers whose rebooked flight is further out than they would have hoped. Our next phase of recovery is to work through our schedule and see how we can get them home on earlier services, where possible,” she said.
