13 June 2014

Virgin reduces Dunedin services in favour of more to Christchurch and Queenstown



In a blow to Dunedin's travel and tourism industry, direct flights to and from Sydney and Melbourne this summer have been dropped... The move comes as Virgin, in a transtasman alliance agreement with Air New Zealand, is increasing flights to Queenstown and Christchurch by 36,000 seats and 43,000 seats respectively, from November to March... Council economic development unit manager Des Adams said cuts to services meant a loss of 12,700 seats coming to the city... For the past couple of years, Virgin, as part of the alliance agreement, has operated two services a week to both Melbourne and Sydney direct from Dunedin during December and January. Passengers travelled on either an Air New Zealand or Virgin aircraft... Figures from the city council's economic development unit showed the flights to Sydney increased 6% from last summer to this summer, and to Melbourne up 14%. Virgin flew direct to Brisbane three times a week but that would increase to four times a week from July to October before going back to three.



No comments:

Post a Comment