Air New Zealand

In May, the airline grounded most of its seven 777-300 aircraft until the end of the 2020 calendar year. It signalled it was unlikely to fly its eight 777-200 aircraft in the foreseeable future and began preparing to send these into long term storage overseas.

In a release, the airline said four of the aircraft will be stored in Victorville in the Californian desert and three would remain in Auckland where they can be used if required.

Cam Wallace will step down from 30 September but will continue to provide support to chief executive Greg Foran until the end of the year.

In a statement, Foran said Wallace, who has been with the airline for 19 years, told him that he wanted to pursue other opportunities for his global career ambitions given the airline had now effectively become a domestic carrier.

Foran praised Wallace for his contribution, saying the airline's passenger and cargo revenues had experienced growth under his leadership.

Air New Zealand is about to dip into the government loan after reporting huge losses yesterday.

The carrier reported the biggest corporate loss in recent history and its first loss in 18 years - a deficit of $454m for the year ended June compared with the previous year's $276m profit.

Much of the loss centred on the costs associated with 4000 redundancies, asset writedowns and grounded planes. Stripped of these one-off costs, the underlying loss was $87m.

The carrier reported an after-tax loss of $454 million for the year ended June compared with the previous year's $276m profit.

Much of the loss was because of write downs in the value of planes, and restructuring costs as it cut costs and sacked about 4,000 staff, which altogether totalled $541m.

Stripping out one-off costs its underlying loss was $87m against $387m profit, as revenue fell 16 percent to $4.84 billion. The airline has received more than $100m in wage subsidies.

Their products are desperately needed in the islands and some are perishable. But, they are being taken off with no warning given.

Blair Krill from exporting company SAMEX Ltd, which sources a wide variety of products from suppliers around New Zealand for Pacific customers, said 95 per cent of its business is done in the islands and its taking a devastating hit.

“Air New Zealand quite frankly don’t give a damn, our freight rates have gone up 300 to 400 per cent," he said.

In an update on its earnings expectations, the company said the recent move to alert level 1 has enabled the airline to slowly restart the domestic network, however revenue and earnings are significantly lower than expected prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It said it was now expecting an underlying operating loss of $120m.

But there are other significant one-off items which will boost the bottom line result.

The company is estimating re-structuring costs, including redundancies, will be between $140 and $160m

In a message to staff, chief executive Greg Foran said international travel made up two-thirds of the company's revenue and that was gone now for the forseeable future.

The airline is now expecting to earn less than $500m year. Before Covid-19, Air New Zealand had annual revenue of around $5.8 billion and a profit of $374m.

Foran said the only way the financial situation would improve was if New Zealanders embrace domestic travel after the lockdown was over.

From the end of March until the 31st of May the airline will only fly to three countries from Auckland, once a week.

In a statement, Air New Zealand said there will be one return service to Nadi, one return service to Rarotonga, and one return service to Niue.

Routes to Tonga and Samoa have been suspended.

Norfolk Island will have two services a week, one from Brisbane and one from Sydney.

The Auckland Regional Public Health Service is warning passengers should be vigilant for symptoms of the highly-infectious disease.

The passenger departed Auckland for Nuku'alofa at 8.30am on Monday, returning at 12.30pm on Wednesday.

Medical Officer of Health Maria Poynter said passengers who were unsure about their immunity should check with their doctor or call Healthline for advice.

She says passengers not immunised, pregnant, living with a weakened immune system or under 12 months old should see their doctor urgently.

The phrase kia ora is a Maori greeting and the trademark attempt has sparked anger from the indigenous community.

The airline said it wants to trademark the magazine logo, not the phrase itself.

The New Zealand Maori Council described the move as "cultural misappropriation" and "frankly despicable".

The council is a statutory body set up to represent the Maori community.

"My warning to Air New Zealand is I sure as hell will put a stop to this," head of the council Matthew Tukaki said.