Jake Nelson

Both international and domestic figures rose year-on-year, with 1,026,386 international and 2,084,257 domestic passengers – up 16 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively – for a new April record of 3.11 million passengers. The news comes soon after Australia marked its best-ever month for international travel.

Speaking exclusively to the Australian Aviation Podcast, Greg Foran, who will depart Air New Zealand in October, said that with the benefit of hindsight, one thing he would have done differently was to “burn more cash” rather than try to cut costs.

Starting in October, Qantas will end its Proserpine services and Jetstar its Hamilton Island services, with each airline to instead add more flights to their respective destinations: Jetstar will add up to nine Proserpine flights per week and QantasLink a new Melbourne-Hamilton Island service.

As reported in The Australian, the union’s barrister, Noel Hutley SC, questioned Qantas’ move to have chief people officer Catherine Walsh front the court in Hudson’s place, given she joined Qantas in 2024 and was not involved in the illegal outsourcing of ground workers during the pandemic.

The four additional weekly services, starting in October, are a response to high demand on the route and will operate using Scoot’s 375-seat 787-9 Dreamliners, comprising 35 “ScootPlus” seats and 340 economy seats.

Speaking to Australian Aviation in Auckland this week, CEO Greg Foran said he is “increasingly optimistic” that Pratt & Whitney, which makes the trouble-plagued PW1100G-JM engines on Air New Zealand’s A320/21neo aircraft, will soon work through its maintenance problems.