Jake Nelson

The NZ national carrier is putting on extra return flights from Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland to Sydney and Melbourne in February, as well as adding seats on existing flights, to cope with an anticipated surge in demand from Kiwis snubbed by the songstress’ Eras Tour, which is bypassing the Land of the Long White Cloud entirely.

The airline will fly daily between the two capitals using its fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft, with the first flight, ZL817, taking off from Sydney on Thursday aboard VH-RQG. According to Rex deputy chairman John Sharp, the route has already seen “strong demand from eager travellers”.

Tom Ganley, who has almost 35 years of airport experience including as a director and former chair of the Australian Airports Association (AAA), will take up the position at Parafield from 1 July.

Originally intended to launch with the airline’s new 737 MAX aircraft, the first flight took off from Cairns as VA77 on board the 737-700 VH-VBZ (similar aircraft pictured) at 2:51pm on Wednesday. The airline will fly daily between Cairns and Tokyo year-round.

Gissing, who is stepping down in November, has served as QantasLink CEO since April 2012, as well as Qantas Group Executive Associated Airlines & Services since 2015. He was previously a founding member of Jetstar’s executive team.

VH-8IA, nicknamed ‘Monkey Mia’, is expected to land in Brisbane this week after numerous delays, and will fly between Cairns and Tokyo (Haneda) after obtaining regulatory approval. The airline has a further seven MAX 8 and 25 MAX 10 aircraft on order.