Airways NZ suffers $35.5 million loss, due to covid

Tāmaki Makaurau - Airways New Zealand says because of covid travel restrictions for much of the last year to June 30, the group is reporting a net loss after tax of $35.5 million.

A total of 366,000 flights were safely facilitated through the 30 million square kilometres of airspace Airways’ controls over Aotearoa in the last fiscal year.

A focus on robust continuity planning and the health and safety of operational teams ensured minimal disruption to services due to the emergence of covid within the workforce in the year, Airways NZ says in its annual report just released.

Air navigation services revenue was $121.6 million, lower than the budgeted $156.5 million. Airways International Limited (AIL) performed well in the difficult operating environment, successfully delivering work remotely while borders remained closed. AIL has delivered a net profit after tax of $4.4 million, ahead of budget of $4.3 million.

Through a second year of pandemic disruption, Airways has stayed the course and continued to deliver on its core purpose of ensuring the safety of New Zealand skies.

Board chair Denise Church says while there was a growing sense of optimism as the recovery took hold, the results reported today reflect the exceptionally challenging circumstances the aviation industry has been working in for the past two years.

 Domestic markets have largely recovered, however forecasts currently indicate international traffic will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2025.

“Airways’ focus on supporting our industry to recover has not shifted and in the year ahead we will continue to collaborate with our customers and partners on initiatives that will allow us to rebuild a future-fit industry that is even safer, resilient, efficient and sustainable,” she says.

Airways has continued to make inroads towards achieving its vision of creating a progressive airspace environment for the future.

For a number of years, Airways has been undertaking a modernisation programme aimed at achieving our objectives of creating a more efficient and sustainable aviation network.

Airways controls all domestic and international air traffic travelling within New Zealand’s flight region, which totals 30 million square kilometres – one of the largest areas of airspace in the world.

The NZ domestic FIR covers the entire country and surrounding coastline with both controlled and uncontrolled airspace.