Air New Zealand has revealed the company’s 2022 numbers and they’ve shown a significant jump in passengers, with 12.3 million guests hopping onboard the black and white jets, compared to 8 million the previous year.
The momentum is also continuing into 2023 with the airline continuing to add more capacity to popular destinations across the network.
Air New Zealand Chief Customer and Sales Officer, Leanne Geraghty, said thanks to the border reopening last year, Air New Zealand carried 12.3 million customers and operated 152,000 flights across its domestic and international network in 2022, a “whopping jump compared to 8 million customers and 118,721 flights the previous year”.
“If the year taught us anything it was that Kiwis absolutely love to travel around Aotearoa and overseas visitors have been longing for our borders to reopen,” she said.
“9.4 million customers travelled on our domestic network last year, up from 7.4 million passengers in 2021. With the international border reopening, 2.9 million customers travelled with us compared to half a million in 2021, providing significant and welcome support for Aotearoa’s ongoing tourism industry recovery.”
Geraghty said there were no surprises that Air New Zealand’s busiest day was 23 December with more than 55,0000 customers heading off on their holiday break.
“With so many customers, there’s a lot of work behind the scenes – our cleaning team cleaned approximately 100,000 aircraft seats every week,” she said.
Last year Air New Zealand also welcomed back five of its Boeing 777s and introduced two new A321neos into its fleet, adding an extra 100,000 seats per aircraft adding more capacity to its domestic network.
Geraghty said 2022 was an incredibly busy year with the border reopening. The airline restarted 24 international services – 14 of those across a 16-day period – and launched its new flagship service, NZ1, to New York.
“I’m incredibly proud of the Air New Zealand team of 10,500, including the 2,200 new employees we brought on board throughout 2022 and all that’s been achieved last year,” she said.
“Things are certainly looking up for 2023 and we’re looking forward to carrying more customers, continuing to relocate native wildlife, transporting cargo, launching our winter route to Bali and everything in between.”