Air New Zealand has fronted a parliamentary select committee today to discuss the impacts of Covid-19 on the airline.
The national carrier, which has cut 4000 jobs over the past few months, was a $6 billion business at the beginning of the calendar year, before coronavirus' arrival in the country.
Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran says the airline has been hit hard by the Covid-19 restrictions, adding that the company is in "survival mode".
"At a point when we were in Level 4, we were operating at one per cent of revenue, or just five per cent of capacity, so that $60 billion business quickly became a $60 million business," Mr Foran said.
Greg Foran said the new online system will go some way to alleviating long wait times faced by those trying to organise flight credit. (Source: Other)
He said the airline has seen a strong demand for domestic travel, however.
"We have been pleasantly surprised with what we have seen," he said.
Mr Foran also gave another "sincere apology" for customers experiencing problems over refund and credit requests over flights cancelled due to the pandemic.
Mr Foran said while the airline's customer services would typically take around 5000 calls per day, that number jumped to as many as 75,000 following the pandemic.
The national carrier has been criticised for not offering full refunds for cancelled flights. (Source: Other)
Air New Zealand launched an online credit service earlier this week for customers looking to rebook flights.
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