The high passenger demand for more flights to service the Auckland–Apia sector has led to Air New Zealand increasing flights to Samoa next month to five a week.

Apia-based Air New Zealand Country Manager Karen Gatt told the Samoa Observer on Friday that they will be increasing flights for that sector in October.

She confirmed that they’ve had “exceptionally high demand” for travel to Samoa from New Zealand since the borders reopened on 1 August 2022.

“We are seeing exceptionally high demand for travel to Samoa over the next few months following the borders opening last month,” Ms. Gatt said. 

“We will be increasing to five flights a week from October and daily from November over the busy Christmas period as customers want to spend the festive season with their aiga [family].”

The Country Manager added that they hope that the additional flights from New Zealand next month will meet the high demand.

"We hope these additional flights will help us to meet this demand and we regularly review our capacity on all our routes to ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers while ensuring operational integrity across the whole network.

"Samoa is a key destination both for Air New Zealand and our customers and we recognise the importance of providing good connectivity and regular services between New Zealand and Samoa.” 

Samoan families have contacted the Samoa Observer in recent days expressing frustration at the inability of family members to travel home from Auckland with a growing backlog of waiting passengers.

A long time tourist to Samoa, Rod Topperwein, told the Samoa Observer in an earlier interview that he did not want to search for flights as it was impossible to get a seat and there are limited flights to Samoa. 

Another visitor Rob Perry said the airfare costs were unaffordable compared to flights during pre-COVID-19 period. 

When Ms. Gatt was asked for comment on the high cost of airfares and if the airline has plans to drop the cost, she said they are working hard to ensure many of their customers can access affordable fares while also covering operational costs.

"We work hard to ensure we can carry as many customers as possible at affordable fares while also covering the operating cost of the flight,” she said.

“There are a range of factors that come into play when it comes to our fare prices, including length of flight, fuel prices, the aircraft and the amazing teams who work hard to get our customers safely to their destination every day such as our crew, engineering, maintenance and airport teams.”