Air NZ's May numbers a shadow of previous year

Air NZ flew 67,000 passengers in May, well short of the 1,281,000 it carried last May. The company said passenger numbers last month were down by nearly 95%. Year to date, its passenger numbers were down 19% at just over 13m. Another measure of air traffic, the number of kilometres travelled by paying passengers, was down 97% in May to 79m, compared to 2.68b. After being virtually grounded by Covid-19 lockdown and border closures, the airline has set a target to return to 13m passengers annually by August 2022, versus the almost 18m it had prior to the pandemic. While business travellers have been slow to return to the skies, the airline said last week it was increasing its domestic schedule to about 65% of pre-coronavirus levels heading into the winter school holidays. In particular, there had been more bookings and more capacity available to Queenstown than the same time last year. The airline has also returned to a single return service per week on its Auckland-Shanghai route from June 22. Air NZ is nearing the end of its financial year on June 30, and has warned it is facing an underlying loss before other significant Items and taxation of up to $120m.<br/>