“There are a lot more business travellers who commute now, and they just want to keep their bag with them and move very quickly through the aircraft.”
She said all airlines were contending with these trends.
“And then there are also a lot more families who travel, and so they have all the paraphernalia that it takes to travel with a baby or a little kid.”
Some of these changing patterns slowed down the boarding process.
“We’ve seen more wheelchairs, more children travelling, more cabin bags.”
Boyer said the airline was trying to strike a balance rather than be draconian.
“It’s really important that we ensure that they can still bring their cabin baggage on board because they value that from our service.
“But we do know that we need to ensure people aren’t taking advantage of the policy.
“Extra items, or really oversized items, is where we focus our enforcement. And we will be dialling that up as we head into the busy Christmas season.”
Boyer said more punctual service meant fewer missed connections for passengers needing to catch multiple flights.
The airline also said anyone running late for a flight needed to remember crew would in almost no circumstances wait for them to show up at the gate.
“If we have 170 passengers sitting on board whose plans are going to be delayed and disrupted, we won’t hold the aircraft for one or two people, because we can then misconnect those passengers,” Boyer said.
“We have to do the right thing by the majority.”
Technology
Air NZ said that this year it started trialling a process called pre-staging general boarding.
That involved airport and cabin crew teams working together to have the gate and customers ready.
The airline said that meant general boarding could start as soon as the aircraft was cleared, making better use of time available before departure.
“What this procedure focuses on is making sure that the second that aircraft is cleared for departure, our customers can step on board,” Boyer said.
After those trials were deemed successful, pre-staging became an approved process this month across all Air NZ departures from New Zealand airports.
Increased use of technology meant many customers now might go from booking to boarding almost never engaging with human staff.
“We still have to sight the passport before you step on to the airplane, but apart from that, it’s pretty smooth and efficient,” Boyer said.
Goals
Air NZ said it wanted to be in the top five carriers worldwide for punctuality among “comparable airlines”.
Boyer said that meant “network airlines” including Qantas and global giants such as Delta and United, which were regarded as competitors in this context.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said Delta had 83.52% on-time performance last month and United was at 78.65%.
“We fly a regional fleet, we fly a long-haul fleet, a domestic fleet, and so we’re a network airline.”
Cirium said China’s Hainan Airlines and Taiwan’s Trinity Airways were the most punctual in the Asia-Pacific region last month and Air NZ was third.
Air New Zealand said 87.3% of its flights in September arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, up from 75.5% a year earlier.
It said total cancellations fell to 1.4%, down from 2.5% in August and 3.3% a year ago.
The airline said it operated 13,072 flights during the month, with regional services delivering the best punctuality at 90.3%.
“Regional is where we have deliberately fine-tuned our schedule to improve operational resilience and performance,” Boyer said.
Not all airlines are included in Cirium data. But Cirium said worldwide, punctuality for airlines covered in the data improved in September.
“There was still plenty of disruption in September. The difference was that the industry finally had some room to absorb it,” said Mike Malik, Cirium chief industry officer.
Malik said northern summer traffic eased and some restrictions were removed from Middle East airspace.
John Weekes is a business journalist covering aviation. He also has experience covering consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.
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