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It's pay day! Air New Zealand staff get a slice of the surplus

It's a good day to be employed by Air New Zealand.

It’s a good day to be employed by Air New Zealand.

 

 

 

The airline’s bosses are so happy with the record-breaking 2015 annual results, they’ve decided to give some of the surplus to its hard-working team.

Revealed this morning, Air New Zealand earned some $496 million in normalised earnings before taxation, up 49 percent on the prior year.

Overall, the carrier walked away with net profits after taxation of $327 million, a rise of 24 percent on the prior year.

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Over the 12 month period, Air New Zealand carried some 14.2 million passengers or 38,900 passengers a day. This was an increase of 4.2 percent on the 13.7 million passengers.

Around 115,000 more passengers flew with Air New Zealand on long haul services during the 2014/15 year, while 437,000 additional flyers travelled with the airline across New Zealand and the Tasman.

According to the airline’s Chairman, Tony Carter, the increase in profits and passenger numbers was driven by additional capacity introduced to meet strong demand.

He also attributed the record breaking figures to the introduction of new aircraft, lower fuel prices, alliance partnerships, world class marketing executions (like the Men in Black-themed safety video) and focus on cost management.

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But more importantly, Carter said great customer service played a hand in this year’s record breaking figures.

As a result, the airline will give 8,000 staff members who are not on other incentive programmes a payment of up to $1,400 each.

“Our people are critical to the airline’s success.”

Christopher Luxon, Air New Zealand Chief Executive

“In the last year we have established a Company Performance Bonus to allow all Air New Zealanders to benefit when we deliver superior commercial results, and this will be paid to eligible workers next week.”

Looking ahead, Luxon expects the airline to achieve new records over the 2015/16 financial year, which will be delivered through new long haul routes such as Houston in the US, which launches in December along with new Buenos Aires services.

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