Qantas will cut international capacity by 90% and Air New Zealand will reduce Tasman services by 80%.
Qantas and Jetstar have announced deep cuts to their services, with total group international capacity to be cut by around 90% and total group domestic capacity slashed by around 60% until at least the end of May.
The changes will be phased in from the end of March onwards and route-by-route detail of all these changes will be announced in coming days.
The cuts represents grounding of around 150 aircraft, including almost all of the group’s wide-body fleet.
Qantas has warned it is dealing with a “significant labour surplus across its operations”.
“Travel demand is unlikely to rebound for weeks or possibly months and the impact of this will be felt across the entire workforce of 30,000 people,” the carrier said, adding that it was “working to manage this impact as much as possible, including through the use of paid and unpaid leave”.
MEANWHILE, Air New Zealand has announced changes to its Tasman capacity, following yesterday’s 85% cut to its long-haul international network.
The airline’s seats between Australia and New Zealand will reduce by 80% effective from 30 March through to 30 June 2020, including the suspension of flights from Auckland to Adelaide, Perth, Cairns, the Sunshine Coast and Coolangatta.
Services from Christchurch to Brisbane, Melbourne and Coolangatta are also being axed, as well as Wellington to Brisbane and Melbourne and Queenstown services to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Frequencies on other routes will also be significantly reduced, with Auckland to Sydney and Melbourne operating just once per day.
Customers are asked to only contact the airline if they are due to fly within 48 hours or need immediate repatriation to New Zealand.
More in today’s edition of Travel Daily.