Air New Zealand cancellations improve after nightmare 2021

Air New Zealand cancelled thousands of flights last year due to border uncertainty and difficulties getting aircraft and crew, but travellers are seeing a return to more normal levels of disruption. A year ago, the national carrier cancelled more than 1000 flights between New Zealand and Australia through to the end of the year. Air NZ also cancelled many domestic flights due to the uncertainty of alert level restrictions. It was then accused of “taking an enormous punt” by ramping up capacity and slashing fares on Auckland flights from early December. In October last year, the airline cancelled 5.49% of its flights, or 3524 services, according to aviation data firm Cirium. That was well above the 0.85% of flights cancelled before Covid hit, in October 2019, 1% in the same month in 2020, and 1.66% of flights cancelled last month. Air NZ generally performed better than Australian airlines in terms of cancellations, aside from October 2020. Last month, Qantas cancelled 1.9% of its flights, Jetstar cancelled 1.86% of flights and Virgin Australia cancelled 2.15% of flights. A year earlier, Qantas cancelled 4.7% of flights, Jetstar canned 6.38% and Virgin Australia cancelled 2.36% of its flights.<br/>