Air New Zealand terminates Buenos Aires, London routes, delays New York launch

Air New Zealand has confirmed that it will be permanently suspending services to Buenos Aires. Furthermore, the airline will not be returning to London once the coronavirus pandemic is over. Finally, the carrier will be delaying its New York launch until 2021 at the earliest.

An Air New Zealand Boeing 777. Photo by Ernest Leung | AeroNewsX

Air New Zealand will be suspending services to Buenos Aires with immediate effect. This comes following more than 4 years of service on its route connecting Auckland with the Argentinian capital. The carrier transported in excess of 400,000 passengers on the service. Therefore, Air New Zealand’s final scheduled flight from Argentina was on 18 March when a 777-300 departed as NZ31 to Auckland.

Air New Zealand’s Chief Networks, Strategy and Alliances Officer, Nick Judd, described Argentina as a “challenging” market even before the coronavirus crisis.

“Argentina has been challenging before the pandemic and we don't expect this market to recover quickly,” he said.

Meanwhile, flights to London will not be resumed after the coronavirus pandemic blows over. Indeed, the airline was removing London from its network from October 2020 and has therefore brought the date forward.

Nick Judd said: “Government travel restrictions will continue for some time and demand for our Los Angeles-London service is unlikely to recover before our planned exit in October.”

Currently, Air New Zealand is operating only 5% of its originally scheduled capacity.

Finally, Air New Zealand has confirmed it will be delaying the launch of its New York service from 29 October till at least early 2021.

Judd, commented: “"It's deeply disappointing to be in this position. Our people have worked tenaciously over the years to build these markets and excitement was growing for our non-stop New York flight.”