Air New Zealand is giving passengers more flexibility for domestic flying to make their journey cheaper and easier. Air New Zealand Chief Customer and Sales Officer Leanne Geraghty said flexibility is incredibly important to customers and these new changes make it really clear as to what they are purchasing. “When we first introduced the fare options, flexibility and choice were some of the main drivers. Today, that’s still important and with ongoing uncertainty due to COVID-19, we wanted to give customers the option to buy more flexibility should they want it. “These changes provide greater flexibility, while also providing clear descriptions around what each fare type allows customers to do.” The new domestic options are:

• Flexirefund – where customers have maximum flexibility to change the date, time, destination, or origin right up until departure without incurring a change fee and receive a refund should they choose not to travel. No fare difference applies if the time of the flight is changed on the day of travel.
• Flexichange – customers will have enhanced flexibility through the waiving of change fees for date, route, and time of travel changes right up until departure. And if customers want to change the time of flight on the day of travel, they can do this for free with no fare difference.
• Seat and seat+bag – these are the lowest cost options and most suited to customers who are sure of their travel plans. Enhanced flexibility will now allow customers to change the time or date of the flight on the day of travel with applicable fees, where previously these changes had to be made before the travel date.

Read World’s Top Airlines for 2021 Read the US to open up to vaccinated travelers  The airline’s current domestic COVID-19 flexibility policy is in place for travel up until 31 October 2021, with its international flexibility policy extended to 28 February 2022. Ms Geraghty adds that “with normal fare rules for domestic travel due to resume from 1 November we wanted to ensure we had a long-term fare structure in place providing customers with more options when it comes to travel flexibility. Customers will still be able to opt-in to credit should their flight be impacted due to Alert Level changes.” Customers with existing bookings made through Air New Zealand under the old product names will automatically have these changed to reflect to the new flexibility options (flexitime will become flexichange and flexidate will become flexirefund). For those who have booked through a travel agent, the new flexibility options will apply to existing tickets and customers can continue to make changes through their agents. In addition, the airline has significantly reduced its domestic at-airport pricing and there is now a single price for each additional piece. Eligible customers will continue to be able to access discounted rates on up to two additional pieces by purchasing prepaid pieces ahead of time.