Air New Zealand Finds MNL Slot Difficult

4 December 2015

As Air New Zealand finds new long-haul routes to Asia Pacific in 2016, the airline found Manila more difficult to fly to after failing to secure desired landing slots at the Philippines premiere airport for next year's summer season.

Air New Zealand proposes to fly 224-seater Boeing 767-300 aircraft direct three times a week from Auckland to Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila by the second half of next year after announcing their flights to Vietnam commencing June of 2016.

Philippine Airlines started flying to Auckland from Manila yesterday, operating four flights a week via Cairns using Airbus A320-200 aircraft with 156 seats.

Air New Zealand chief strategy, networks and alliance officer Stephen Jones was quoted as saying that there is a strong two way traffic between New Zealand and the Philippines. 

Tourism data show passenger travel from the Philippines to New Zealand increased by 9.4% over the last five years, while the New Zealand to the Philippines travel grew by 11.6% over the same period.

"That means there are more kiwis wanting to visit the Philippines," Jones said.

From Jan.-Sept. 2015, the number of inbound tourists to the Philippines from New Zealand stood at 14,206, while about 13,500 Filipinos made their way to New Zealand last year.

There are more than 44,000 ethnic Filipino community in New Zealand last year. 

6 comments:

  1. So use Clark International Airport, and consider CIA as temporary twin airport of NAIA.

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  2. Why not use cebu airport then code share with pal on cebu manila cebu route....or demand fifth freedom flight,say auckland to hongkong via cebu.....or auckland to clark via cebu

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  3. If PAL got a decent landing slot in Auckland, shouldn't NAIA do the same for ANZ?

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    1. Unfortunately they are not alone. Jet Airways of India suffers the same fate. PAL also has difficulty securing landing slot at LHR. It's just the way it is at congested airport. If ANZ doesn't get the available slot now it will be gone next year probably in favor of ME-based airlines.

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    2. LHR is a perfect example - how the heck did PAL secure a Heathrow slot when they go for about $60M?

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  4. Oh! Another landing slot difficulty for NAIA.

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