Air New Zealand carried 901,000 passengers in June, a 150% increase year-on-year. The airline increased capacity, as measured in available seat-kilometres, by 141%, while the month's revenue passenger-kilometres was up by 165%, it says in a 2 August filing to New Zealand's Exchange. Passenger load factor improved 6.1 percentage points to 65%. On domestic routes, the carrier carried 787,000 passengers, up 132% year-on-year, whereas Tasman/Pacific routes saw an increase of 667% to 109,000 passengers. Capacity on domestic routes was increased by 107%, while revenue-passenger-kilometres rose 139%. For its Tasman/Pacific network, Air New Zealand increased capacity by over 551% and RPKs increased by 735%. Passenger load factor on domestic routes grew 10 percentage points to 78%, while the load factor on Tasman/Pacific routes gained nearly 14 percentage points to over 63%. The airline carried 5,000 passengers on long-haul routes, declining by 35% year-on-year.

Qantas Group will roll out IATA’s Travel Pass digital health application when regular international flights return. “We want to get our international flights back in the air and our people back to work and a digital health pass will be a key part of that,” Qantas Group chief customer officer, Stephanie Tully says in a statement today. “A digital health pass will connect customers with Covid testing facilities, health authorities and airlines, and ultimately enable the opening of more travel bubbles and borders.” Tully says Qantas is working with IATA to develop the application to make the process “as seamless as possible” for travellers as international borders start to reopen. The group says final development is now underway to ensure the application is ready for use on Qantas and Jetstar international flights when they resume. Many countries where Qantas and Jetstar operate to have announced requirements of either a proof of vaccine or negative Covid-19 test result to enter without quarantine, Qantas Group says, including the UK, Canada and USA. “IATA Travel Pass delivers an advantage over other solutions in that the app enables travellers to create a digital ID derived from a government-issued document such as a passport,” Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice-president for operations, safety and security says in the same statement. “This means that airlines and governments can have full confidence in the test/vaccine results both from a content and identity perspective.”

The reopening of the transatlantic market would be a major boost to the outlook for the Boeing 787, in the view of AerCap chief executive Aengus Kelly. During an analyst call on 29 July, Kelly described the North Atlantic route as the biggest widebody market in the world and said that a return to normal traffic would "be a help to the 787, no doubt". Noting recent relaxations of travel restrictions by European countries to allow non-essential travel by US citizens, Kelly adds: "We would be hopeful that in the near term the US administration will reciprocate... It will have a huge benefit on US industry to do it. It will improve demand for the aircraft as well." Kelly acknowledges that Boeing's 787 delivery process is "not going well at the moment": the US airframer expects to deliver less than half of the Dreamliners currently in inventory this year. Nonetheless, he hails the type as the "most popular widebody aircraft ever introduced" and declares AerCap's "tremendous confidence" in it. However, AerCap has no 787s to place until 2024, he notes. The lessor continues to deliver contracted aircraft to customers in co-operation with them and Boeing. Asked whether he agreed with recent commentary from Avolon that many aircraft values had now bottomed out, Kelly responded: "I certainly would." Kelly says the outlook for the market is now is much brighter than in December 2020 when AerCap was preparing its outlook calculations in relation to its proposed takeover of GECAS. At that time, the Irish lessor saw a "longer road before we would be able to sell significant amount of assets". That outlook had changed, and AerCap is seeing bids for assets coming in. Kelly is confident AerCap can de-lever its balance sheet ahead of its planned merger with GECAS in the fourth quarter.