Air New Zealand Cargo is offering importers and exporters a range of charter options to keep cargo moving to and from New Zealand during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Air New Zealand general manager cargo Rick Nelson says the airline has introduced a number of innovative measures to keep Kiwi businesses connected to the world.
"We’re offering our cargo customers a range of aircraft charter services covering every port on the Air New Zealand network (excluding London). We have also been able to provide customised options from North American markets through to Australia.
"With our Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft for example, we have the ability to uplift 11 cargo pallets in each direction we fly. Each of these pallets can take up to 12 cubic metres in volume and up to 4600 kilograms in weight.
"We’ve shared these options with our global cargo customer base and are getting some strong interest from customers wanting to ship to and from Shanghai, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sydney and Melbourne.
"We’ve also introduced the concept of a ‘Multi Party Charter Agreement’ which has been designed to help small and medium sized exporters and importers to ensure they have options available to them to move their goods in these challenging times. Under this model, our customers can purchase a single airfreight pallet position on a charter flight, or by working together with a freight forwarder, a coalition of exporters and importers can potentially combine and consolidate their shipments so that they are able to purchase a single unit on the aircraft.
"This is undoubtedly an extremely difficult time for our airline with a significant reduction in capacity due to reduced travel demand, but we are pleased to be able to keep New Zealand connected to the world in this way."
At the same time, Air New Zealand is working with the Government to ensure critical cargo transport lines are maintained.
