In preparation for Cyclone Gabrielle, Air New Zealand is offering customers booked to travel to, from or through Auckland, Whangarei, Kerikeri, Tauranga, Hamilton and New Plymouth between Sunday 12 February and Friday 17 February flexibility on their fares.

The airline is working closely with relevant authorities to understand the severity of the cyclone and will be working through any required amendments to its schedule over the next 48 hours. Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty says the airline will do everything in its power to limit the impact of the cyclone on travel plans however customers should be prepared as there may be some delays or cancellations.

“Teams around the business have kicked into gear to start planning for any disruptions to our network due to Cyclone Gabrielle. We will do everything we can to limit the impact on our schedule, however, with severe winds forecast for the North Island, it’s likely we’ll need to make some changes.”

“We encourage those with non-urgent travel, travelling to, from or through Auckland, Whangarei, Kerikeri, Tauranga, Hamilton and New Plymouth between Sunday 12 February and Friday 17 February to consider use of our flexibility policy. Customers can either hold their fare in credit for 12 months or rebook in the same class of travel between Sunday 12 February 2023 and Wednesday 22 February 2023 without fare difference, penalty or service fees.”

Customers who may be impacted by changes to the airline’s schedule will be emailed directly. The airline advises customers to keep an eye on their Air NZ app and the travel alerts page of the Air New Zealand website for up-to-date information.

“We thank our customers while we work to plan for this weather event. At this stage, our customer care teams don’t have any more detail around potential schedule changes so we ask customers to bear with us and we will be in touch once we have more information. We will continue to update our website with more information as we monitor and plan for Cyclone Gabrielle”.

Air New Zealand’s contact centre is currently receiving thousands of calls. The airline advises customers to only call if your enquiry is urgent but to rest assured it’s working through the potential impact of this weather event as a priority.

Air New Zealand will continue to monitor the situation and advise any changes to the flexibility policy guidelines. Should there be an improvement in the weather the flexibility guidelines will cease and will revert to standard fares conditions.

Given that the airline is focused on managing these impacts for our customers, it will not be able to provide specific flight details or impacted customer numbers at this time.