As New Zealand enters a strict lockdown, Air New Zealand has announced changes to its schedule to assist customers in amending their tickets and returning home safely.
The New Zealand Government has announced that New Zealand will enter Alert Level 4 from 11.59pm on 17 August 2021 for an initial period of 3 days, with Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula likely to remain at Alert Level 4 for at least 7 days.
For the next 48 hours, Air New Zealand will continue to operate its current domestic New Zealand schedule to enable customers to return home to their place of residence.
After this time, domestic New Zealand travel is limited to essential workers only.
“We want to remind customers that we’ve been here before and have built the capability to work through the changes,” said Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Greg Foran.
“Our teams will be working hard over the next 48 hours to get Kiwis to where they need to be and we ask that customers please be patient appreciate our staff are doing their very best.”
Customers affected by the Alert Level changes have the following flexibility options.
International:
The trans-Tasman bubble was paused for at least eight weeks from 11:59pm Friday 23 July.
Customers holding an International ticket from an NZ port to an International destination booked and ticketed before 17 August 2021 for travel up to and including 24 August 2021 have the following options:
- Date change is permitted with the change fee and fare difference waived for rebooking travel up to and including 31 August 2021.
- For travel on Air New Zealand operated services, book the same or next best available booking class in the same cabin and/or product type. If rebooking into a higher cabin fare difference applies.
- For travel on other airlines, please book the same booking class, if this is not available, please contact agency sales for options.
- Hold the ticket in credit for travel up to 28 February 2022 (as per the COVID-19 Flexibility Guide)
- Normal refund rules apply.
- Please reissue tickets with endorsement “Change due NZ alert levels“
- Please note, customers with inbound travel to New Zealand from the Pacific Islands are also entitled to the above flexibility.
Norfolk Island
Air New Zealand will be suspending passenger services between Australia and Norfolk Island from 30 August 2021 due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 in Australia and the suspension of quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand.
Qantas will continue to operate passenger services to Norfolk Island until 30 June 2022.
As a result, Air New Zealand says it will be refunding all passengers currently booked to travel on its Norfolk Island services after 29 August 2021.
Please note, customers will not be automatically re-accommodated to travel on Qantas. For those customers still wishing to travel, a new ticket will need to be purchased directly with Qantas.
The following process applies for GDS 086 ticket refunds:
- Agents can process a full refund in the GDS or where a GDS refund is not possible, please apply via BSP link.
- If the ticket was issued using a Virtual Card, then please process the refund application via BSP link.
- If your customer has a Virtual Card based on an original Norfolk Island ticket, then you can apply for a refund using the original ticket number via BSP link.
- Any groups currently booked on Air New Zealand services will also be cancelled and refunded. We will provide further clarity on this process shortly. To rebook affected groups onto Qantas, agents should contact Qantas Group Travel to secure seats.
- For all Norfolk Island refunds, please use endorsement ‘RFND NLK SUSP’.
Domestic New Zealand:
Customers holding a domestic New Zealand ticket booked and ticketed before 17 August 2021, for travel up to and including 24 August 2021 have the following options:
- Date change is permitted with the change fee and fare difference waived for rebooking travel up to and including 31 August 2021.
- No additional collection applies for travel to/from the same destination. If customers were travelling AKL-NSN they may change to AKL-CHC-NSN without penalty.
- Flexibility can be applied to reroute free of charge out of another port if there is no flight availability within a similar origin/destination e.g. ZQN-AKL can be rebooked CHC-AKL or departures out of TRG can be rebooked out of ROT. No refund if the fare is lower unless fare rules permit.
- Book the same or next best available booking class and/or product type.
- Hold the ticket in credit, valid for 12 months from date of issuance.
- Normal refund rules apply.
- Please reissue tickets with endorsement “Change due NZ alert levels“
- Passengers who no-show for domestic travel over this time will automatically be moved to credit.
For travel outside of these dates, customers have flexibility as per COVID-19 Flexibility Guides.
For NZ based travel agents helping domestic customers who require a seat to get home, please waitlist ONE flight only. PNRs with more than one waitlisted flight may be auto cancelled.
Air New Zealand also ask if your customers will not be travelling over the next few days to please cancel the space ASAP and place their ticket into credit, as this will free up space for other passengers who need to travel to get home.
Click here for more information.