International visitor arrivals at Auckland International Airport increased by 16% to more than 171,400 in July, mainly due to a 25% increase in holiday arrivals.
AIA yesterday released its July monthly traffic update which showed seat capacity additions across all key regions had helped drive the growth, accommodating stronger demand during the traditionally lower winter season.
Auckland airport's tourism marketing campaign ``Four seasons; Five senses'' was also helping to create demand and fill the capacity throughout the year, the company said.
The marketing campaign was helping support tourism operators, travel agents and airlines to promote ``outstanding'' New Zealand seasonal travel experiences.
United States visitor arrivals were up 36.2% in July, the monthly update showed.
AIA said the growth was stimulated by an additional 11 weekly return services to the US in July, including American Airlines' daily Los Angeles service and United Airlines' three-flights-per-week San Francisco service.
Arrivals to New Zealand from the mid-west and east coast states were up 76.1% in July as a result of the increased connectivity through those two west coast airline hubs, as well as Air New Zealand's five-flights-per-week Houston service.
Air NZ, which will report its annual financial results on Friday, said in a statement it carried 1.26 million passengers during July, an increase of 6.5% compared to the previous corresponding period.
Long-haul passenger numbers increased 9.8% when compared to July last year with demand up 11.1% and capacity up 13.5%. Load factor on long-haul routes was 85.2%, down 1.8%.
On the Americas and United Kingdom routes, demand increased 12.1% and capacity increased 14.8% due to the Auckland-Houston and Auckland-Buenos Aires routes. Those increases were partially offset by reduced frequency on the Auckland-Los Angeles route, Air NZ said.
On the Asia, Japan and Singapore routes, demand increased 9.5% and capacity increased by 11.2% due to the start of the seasonal Auckland-Ho Chi Minh City route.
Auckland airport reported international passengers, excluding transit passengers, increased by 13.3% to 791,077 in July compared with July last year. This includes New Zealanders travelling.
The 92,000 increase was driven by the Americas (up 31.2%), Asia and the Middle East (26.4%) following the addition of four new services to each region in July this year.
Solid performances were also achieved by the Pacific (8.7%) and Tasman (4.5%) regions, both boosted by school holiday traffic and new airlines servicing Rarotonga, the Gold Coast and Cairns.
Queenstown Airport's passenger arrivals and departures continued to grow in July, AIA's figures showed. AIA has a stake in Queenstown Airport.
International passenger movements increased 6.4% in July to 66,779 and were up 18.5% in the year ended June to 478,807.
Total domestic passenger numbers increased 23.2% in the month to 106,962 and they were up 19% on the year to nearly 1.2 million. There were 553 international aircraft movements through Queenstown in July, up 8%, and 826 domestic aircraft movements, up 3.3%. The 3679 international aircraft movements in the year to July were up 15.3% on the pcp and the nearly 9000 domestic aircraft movements in the year to July were up 13.3%.
