Air NZ swaps landing slots with United Airlines at Heathrow in secret deal

Air NZ still holds a landing slot at Heathrow four months after shutting its London base and axing its Los Angeles-London service. Last year the airline said it would stop the daily service from October resulting in the loss of 130 jobs. But the route’s closure was brought forward to late March due to the coronavirus pandemic. A landing slot trading update by airport co-ordination company ACL shows Air NZ swapped 14 of its valuable arrival and departure slots at Heathrow Airport with United. The airlines requested on June 17 for Air NZ’s 10.50am arrival and 3.20pm departure slots at Heathrow to be swapped with United’s 11pm arrival and 11.05pm departure slots.<br/>The new slots would apply from late October to late March next year. An Air NZ spokeswoman said it would not provide detail about the Heathrow slots “due to strict obligations around confidentiality in the agreement”. In January Air NZ told investors it made a gain of about $21m resulting from the partial sale of airport slots at Heathrow Airport to an undisclosed party.<br/>