Trans Tasman Airline Capacity Grows to Meet Passenger Demand

By Henry Cole.

Trans-Tasman passenger traffic is reaching record highs and spurring the Qantas Group and Air New Zealand to add more flights between New Zealand and Australia.

New Zealand is Australia’s top source of inbound passengers. Approximately 135,800 New Zealanders landed in Australia in September for a short-term stay, making up 19.5% of Australia’s total short-term visitor arrivals that month.

In the other direction, in the year to September 2025, Australian visitor arrivals to New Zealand reached a record high of 1.48 million, up from 1.33 million the previous year. New Zealand remains the second most popular international destination for Australians (after Indonesia).

“September 2025 was the second highest for the number of visitor arrivals from Australia after 2019, reflecting an increase in trans-Tasman flights,” said New Zealand Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston.

Underscoring the minister’s comments, Qantas International CEO Cam Wallace told a travel industry event this week that the airline had “added a truckload of capacity on the Tasman.”

In its latest investor update, Air New Zealand said its short-haul capacity, which includes the trans-Tasman market, has grown by 10.2% in the 12 months to September.

Recently, Air New Zealand commenced a seasonal Adelaide (ADL) – Christchurch (CHC) service and next year, will start seasonal Brisbane (BNE) – Queenstown (ZQN) flights. They supplement the existing 19 year-round and seasonal trans-Tasman city-pairs flows by the airline, which it says aims to put another 130,000 seats into the trans-Tasman market between October 2025 and March 2026.

Qantas new Adelaide - Auckland service performing well

Qantas and Jetstar will add another 210,000 seats across the Tasman over the upcoming summer, including the recently started Qantas seasonal flights between Adelaide (ADL) and Auckland (AKL). While those flights are due to run through May 2026, Wallace told Aero South Pacific that the route’s performance so far was “solid” and there was always the option to extend the May end date.

“Australians are still choosing travel as a category over other consumer products, which is awesome,” said Wallace. “We're seeing some really favourable market conditions.”

He says the Qantas Group’s low-cost carrier, Jetstar, “has worked really well” with its full-service sibling carrier on trans-Tasman routes.

While Jetstar competes with Qantas and Air New Zealand on some of the busier routes across the Tasman, it frequently focuses on city pairs not serviced by other airlines. Jetstar is now the only carrier offering international flights out of Hamilton (HLZ) and Dunedin (DUD) Airports. It has also turned a non-capital city airport, Gold Coast (OOL), into an Australian hub for its trans-Tasman network.

The tourism and aviation sectors make an important economic contribution to New Zealand. International visitors contributed NZD12.1 billion (USD6.9 billion) for the 12 months ending June 30, 2025, while the aviation sector contributed 5.6% of GDP and 177,000 jobs.

“International tourism, as New Zealand’s second highest export earner, is a key part of our economic recovery,” said Upton. “With summer around the corner, we are making steady progress against our goal to return to pre-COVID visitor levels.”

Photo: Getty Images.