Air New Zealand’s Sep on-time performance rose to 87.3%, up from 85.3% in Aug and 75.5% a year earlier, as the airline extends a boarding change to all departures from New Zealand airports.
The figure, based on flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule, compares with a global average of 77.7% for the month. It places NZ third among Asia Pacific airlines in aviation analytics company Cirium’s Sep rankings, adds the national carrier.
The airline operated 13,072 flights in Sep, with regional services recording 90.3% on-time performance.
Cancellations fell to 1.4%, from 2.5% in Aug and 3.3% a year ago.
NZ’s chief operations officer Kate Boyer says the OTP result reflects the airline’s focus on the smaller steps that determine whether a flight leaves on time. One of these is a process called pre-staging general boarding, which was trialled earlier this year. It sees airport and cabin crew work together to have the gate and customers ready so general boarding can start as soon as the aircraft is cleared.
On international flights from Auckland, Boyer says the trial cut extended boarding delays by around 45% and brought the start of general boarding forward by just under four minutes.
A follow-up trial on domestic jet services ex Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch reduced boarding-related delays by about 25%, she adds.
Pre-staging became an approved process across all of the carrier’s departures from New Zealand airports on 01 Oct.
“The biggest learning has been about what we can achieve when our airport and cabin crew teams have a shared understanding of what excellence looks like and work together to get flights ready earlier,” adds Boyer. “87.3% is a strong result, but our focus is the other 12.7%.”
