Air New Zealand to deploy Dreamliner on domestic routes for school holidays

The airline is boosting flight frequency across its network for the school holidays
The airline is boosting flight frequency across its network for the school holidays Photo credit: Getty.

Some domestic travellers will be in for a treat these school holidays with Air New Zealand set to deploy its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner on the domestic network.

The airline is adding more capacity to its national schedule for the July school holidays, including the 302 seat Dreamliner to operate between Auckland and Christchurch.

The Dreamliner will operate 16 return passenger services between Auckland and Christchurch between July 1 and July 16, which means an extra 10,000 seats will be available to book on this route.

"We'll also add capacity to all of our other main trunk routes – from Auckland to Wellington, Dunedin and Queenstown, as well from Wellington to Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown through either extra flights or by upgauging to larger aircraft," said Air NZ's general manager of networks Scott Carr.

Air New Zealand's Airbus A321neo.
Air New Zealand's Airbus A321neo. Photo credit: Newshub.

The airline will also be boosting capacity on its Auckland to Queenstown routes to levels even higher than last year when COVID-19 wasn't a factor.

"We'll be offering even more capacity over the school holidays than we did during the same time last year through upgauging 140 return services from our A320 to our larger A321neo aircraft between June 29 and July 26. This is great news for tourism and those wanting to hit the slopes." 

The airline will also be adding a number of extra services on its regional routes in the week leading up to the school holidays including to and from Blenheim, Dunedin, Gisborne, Hamilton, Invercargill, Kerikeri, Napier, New Plymouth, Nelson, Palmerston North, Rotorua and Tauranga.

Air NZ is also working on additional flights for its regional ports during the school holidays.