It’s been announcements galore from Air New Zealand recently as it gears up to take the world by storm following the pandemic.

The highly anticipated bunk beds and new routes from Air NZ have the industry very excited, but that’s not all the Kiwi carrier has in store for keen travellers, aviation geeks and sky-high die-hards.

So Travel Weekly caught up with Air New Zealand’s chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty to discuss these updates and get an idea of where (and how) else the airline is looking to soar above the clouds.

Travel Weekly: Could you tell me about what inspired the bunk beds at Air New Zealand and how you can expect it to influence those who are torn between flying with Air New Zealand and a competitor?

Leanne Geraghty: It’s really inspired by the customer research and insights that were undertaken way back at the start of our Future Aircraft Cabin Experience Program. So it’s five years worth of work and when we did those initial elements of research, it really showed that rest, sleep and wellness were the key elements that people were looking for, particularly on ultra long haul services, where they’re in the aircraft for such a long period of time. That was the inspiration and then the team went about designing something that actually fulfillled that need and gave our customers choice to have a lie flat experience no matter where they were within the aircraft.

I think it’s a huge differentiator. I don’t believe there’s any other airline across the globe at this stage that has a lie flat product offering for customers traveling in either an economy or a Premium Economy cabin. I think it’s a huge game changer and it just offers a whole bunch of choice for customers no matter where they are within the plane. So (it’s a) huge competitive advantage.

TW: It was mentioned in the press release today the bunk beds would be available in four hour slots and for a price somewhere between $400-600 How’d you guys come up with the idea for the timeframe and the pricing?

LG: The timeframe is actually based on sleep research. We actually brought in the expertise of sleep experts who worked with us to determine that the four hour time slot allows people to go through two full REM cycles, which are 90 minutes each and gives time for people to actually wind down, fall asleep, and then, conversely, wake up at the time to exit the Skynests.

TW: Would there just be one section of six (bunk beds) on each plane, or is their plans to maybe have two or three?

LG: This stage, it’s one pod of six bunks that will be available on the aircraft. We believe that’s a good way to start, test the product, and suit the demand. Obviously, it does displace some economy seats in the cabin.

We believe that six is the right number to start with.

TW: Changing gears a bit. Does Air New Zealand have any plans to boost capacity to certain destinations? If there’s not any specific plans, where do you think you can see capacity boosts in the future?

LG: We don’t have specific plans at the moment. We’re trying to put additional capacity in across our network because we appreciate that demand is such that we’re not able to meet it as we would like to with the capacity at the moment. As we bring more aircraft into the fleet – we’ve brought in some new a 321 aircraft, we’ve got a new 787 coming into the fleet and we’ve returned our 777s from the desert – we are readjusting the network to put as much capacity in utilising the seats we have available as we possibly can.

Air New Zealand AIR NZ Airbus A321neo new livery for airbus A321 passenger plane for Air New Zealand (picture supplied)

In terms of the future, we’ve got a very clear strategy to grow our domestic network, and to optimise International which is really a core concentration across North America, Asia. And of course, Pacific Island and the Tasman markets are really important to us. So that is really our focus. It’s just optimising the seats we have to provide as much capacity as we can.

TW: Could you tell me a bit more about boosting capacity or optimising capacity in North America, especially considering United recently announced a whole array of new routes and upped the capacity for routes that go to New Zealand as well?

LG: In terms of North America, I think it’s really important to note that Auckland is Australasia’s most connected city to North America. The number of services that we operate direct are the largest in this region. The United Airlines extra flights coming on board – obviously we’re incredibly supportive (as) they’re are a long-standing alliance partner of ours – so collectively, we think it’s great that they’re bringing that extra capacity in and particularly the new direct service into Christchurch.

TW: When do you think Air New Zealand can expect to see full recovery?

LG: We are anticipating full recovery towards the end of next year or early 2025. I mean, we are at 100 per cent of our pre-COVID network domestically and in the international context, we’re just over 90 per cent.

For some market groups, such as Asia, we’re above pre-COVID. It just depends. But if you talk on average for recovery, probably early 2025.

TW: Right now, whenever we talk about airlines people talk about air fares. Does anyone have a particular timeframe or a date as to when we can see the average airfares return to pre-pandemic levels?

LG: No, we couldn’t put a specific date on it because there are so many influencing factors that determine airfares. As I said previously, one of the core levers to get fares down is additional capacity to meet the strong demand that we’re seeing across the sector.

Then the other area that we’re very focused on at the moment is putting the right tools in our people’s hands, to make sure that we’re making them productive and effective. We can’t, unfortunately, do much about the cost increases that are being placed upon us like every other sector. We do have to bear those in mind, but we’re trying to use the levers available to us to bring fears down.

TW: When you say tools, what exactly do you mean?

LG: So it’s actually making our people more efficient as a mechanism to bring costs out of the business. For example, we’ve deployed new tools into our contact centre which enables our teams to get through customer calls and queries faster, therefore making them more efficient, bring the cost of that part of the business down. That obviously impacts what we have to charge. (When) you do that across the business and put the right tools in place, it has an impact.

TW: Could you tell me about the steps that have been taken to hit carbon zero by 2050? Maybe something that is quite important for Air New Zealand and maybe something that sets Air New Zealand apart?

LG: We have a full program. It’s an incredibly important area for us. I think the thing that’s changed for us most recently is a focus on prevention of carbon emissions versus offsetting carbon emissions. To achieve that, we really need to get sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in place; that is the biggest game changer for us as an airline that flies along sector sector levels across water. Implementation of SAF is key. 

The second thing that we’re doing, which is highly important, is looking at green hydrogen aircraft for our domestic turboprop fleet. We’ve committed to a demonstrator aircraft flying by 2026 and we’re at the start of replacing our Q300 fleet by 2030. We’ve got some fairly large aspirations and ambitions and quite a lot of work ahead to make sure we achieve those.

TW: It’s been mentioned quite a bit today that there’s been a bit of a plateau of tourism coming into New Zealand following that surge of revenge travel. Is there anything that Air New Zealand is doing to entice the Aussie travel trade and Aussie travel agents to be booking with Air New Zealand and get them coming back over?

LG: My first key message is that we are 100 per cent committed to our long standing partnerships with the Australian travel trade. The teams have been, and will continue to, work really hard in terms of getting our presence back and ensuring we’re getting the level of support back.

We’ve rebuilt our team, we’re starting to look at ways in which we can add additional value and support to our trade partners as we’re now moving out of the revival phase.

There is a keen interest of ours and the objective to actually get those tools and support mechanisms in place and we’re hoping to be able to come out with some announcements in that regard over the coming month.

TW: Any clues as to what the announcement could be, or is that still secret?

LG: Look, it’s a combination of things that we’re we’re looking at, and we’re in discussions. So nothing firm at this stage, but we’re looking at a combination of potentially some technology changes that will help streamline the extra workload the trade have had to endure over the course of the last couple of years as we’ve rebuilt. Then also some value-added things to help them build their business with us.

TW: Anything on commissions?

LG: No changes to commissions.

Featured Image: Leanne Geraghty (Source/Air New Zealand)