From today, Air New Zealand will require the use of face masks on all international flights to and from New Zealand as a result of updated overseas government border requirements and as a further proactive safety measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Currently, customers travelling on the airline domestically, as well as between Australia, Rarotonga, Samoa, South Korea and Tonga are subject to local government requirements to wear masks inflight.

Air New Zealand chief operational integrity and safety officer David Morgan says the airline continues to proactively review operational processes to keep its customers, employees and New Zealand safe. “As COVID-19 cases around the world continue to rise, particularly with new variant strains, we’ve put this requirement in place to further ensure the safety of our customers, aircrew and broader New Zealand. Our customers are already required by law to wear masks inflight to a number of our destinations, so extending this mandate to the remainder of our network provides a further safeguard against any potential spread of the virus. To date our customers have been overwhelmingly supportive of the requirement to wear masks and we thank them for their ongoing cooperation,” he said.

The carrier continues to work with the New Zealand government on border requirements, such as pre-departure testing announced last week.