As Cyclone Gabrielle moves away from New Zealand, leaving four people dead and a massive trail of destruction, the country's flag carrier is scrambling to reconnect the nation. In a cruel twist of fate, an area near the capital Wellington has been hit by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake, although there have been no reports of injury or damage so far.
Back in the air, but recovery will take time
Air New Zealand (ANZ) is assessing the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, reporting yesterday that 821 flights were canceled and 49,000 customers had their travel plans disrupted. By yesterday, the international and domestic network was back up and running, although operations into the heavily impacted regions of New Plymouth, Napier and Gisborne suffered some minor disruptions as the routes were resumed.
Once again, the airline's chief customer and sales officer, Leanne Geraghty, was front and center, revealing that morning operations yesterday "were a little bumpy" as displaced aircraft and crews were repositioned. She added that by Tuesday afternoon, the airline was "about halfway there," but now it is completely focused on customer recovery. She said:
"To have the airline operating largely as normal today is no small feat. We had to divert nine services last night to other ports like Christchurch and Nadi, rework our schedule to allow for the planes and crew we had out of place, bring a large proportion of turboprops back out of storage and then work to rebook and look after those who have been disrupted."
How is the airline recovering?
After barely getting through the recent flooding of Auckland Airport (AKL) and sorting out thousands of displaced passengers, the airline's contact center has been hit with another 49,000 looking for help. There were around 6,500 international customers affected by Tuesday's raft of cancelations, including services from Australia, North America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Part of the challenge is finding the additional capacity to put where needed most, be that by using larger aircraft or increasing service frequencies.
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With a full flying schedule already happening, ANZ does not have a lot of idle aircraft it can suddenly bring into service and get everyone where they are supposed to be. According to fleet data from ch-aviation.com, the airline has only three aircraft listed as inactive, and two of those are in maintenance. The three listed as inactive are an Airbus A320-200, an ATR72-600 and a Boeing 777-300ER, which is listed as stored. On the widebody front, all of the airline's Boeing 787-9s are flying, and six out of seven 777-300ERs are active.
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ANZ advised that it had added extra international services to Nadi (Fiji), Tahiti, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Apia (Samoa) and is exploring additional flights to North America. On the domestic network, it has added extra services between Auckland Airport and Christchurch International Airport (CHC), mainly to recover passengers diverted south when landing in Auckland was impossible.
ANZ has previously advised about its extended flexibility on ticket changes, which it has extended for cyclone disruptions up to February 17th. For domestic passengers, the flexibility applies until February 22nd, while international customers can change travel up to March 8th without a change fee, service fee or fare difference applying. If travel is only available in a higher cabin, the fare differential will apply, and alternatively, tickets can be put into credit towards travel within 12 months.