Air New Zealand has reported a profit before tax of NZ$299 million (AU$273 million) for the first half of the 2023 financial year (1H FY23), a huge turnaround from its loss of $376 million for the prior corresponding period (pcp).
Its statutory earnings come on the back of a $3.1 billion operating revenue driven by strong demand, particularly across the peak summer period.
As the airline continues its solid post-pandemic recovery, New Zealand’s national carrier reported it flew 8 million passengers compared to the 3 million it flew over the same period last year.
According to Air New Zealand, international services are at 60 per cent of pre-Covid levels, while domestic capacity is at 94 per cent.
After three years of Covid-related losses, Air NZ’s recovery was fuelled by strong summer demand, the comeback of business travel, overseas arrivals and cargo operations.
Positive result, but challenges remain
Air New Zealand Chair Dame Therese Walsh said she was “incredibly proud of the Air New Zealand whānau” and that today’s result “reflects an important milestone in our recovery and places us in a strong position to deliver on our strategy”.
“When New Zealand’s borders reopened much earlier than expected, our people rose to the occasion, moving swiftly to return aircraft to service, relaunch 29 routes and onboard more than 3,000 employees to support the eight million customers we flew between July and December – the busiest period we’ve seen in over three years,” Walsh added.
Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran said that while the recovery was “well underway and operating performance is improving steadily” … “like most airlines globally, we continue to experience challenges that make it hard at times for our fantastic team to deliver the level of service we expect of ourselves, and our customers expect of us”.
“We know we have more work to do to tackle customer concerns like long wait times at our call centres, getting planes to depart and arrive on time, lost baggage and getting refunds back in a timely manner,” he remarked.
“We want to thank customers for bearing with us through these and other challenges since we restarted flying.”
In other good news…
Foran added that “despite the challenges we’ve faced, we have fully reopened our international network, launched our flagship service to New York, and improved our onboard food service”.
“We’ve also upgraded our mobile app, grown our Airpoints Store six-fold since 2019 and taken bold steps towards becoming a more sustainable airline. That is no small ask,” he stated.
“We’re investing in our people, recruiting 2,000 employees in the last six months alone, increasing our lowest wages and supporting new parents by improving parental leave.”
Earlier this week, Air New Zealand also revealed its new Economy Stretch offering.
