Air NZ loads in flights to get Warriors fans to Sydney

Air New Zealand has today added even more capacity to its schedule to help league fans desperate to get to Sydney to watch the Warriors play in Sunday’s NRL Grand Final.

The airline has already put on two special 747 charter services to Sydney through grabaseat, offering fans flights and tickets to the game for $999.

The first charter service, released on Sunday, sold out in an hour, and the second, released at 9am today, sold out in six minutes.

Group General Manager Australasia Bruce Parton says the airline wanted to give every opportunity to passionate fans to get across the ditch to see the Warriors take on the Manly Sea Eagles in Sunday’s final.

“Twitter and Facebook have been abuzz today with customers asking for help to get to Sydney – everyone is desperate to be able to be there for the match,” he says.

“Unfortunately we don’t have the aircraft to be able to offer a third charter, but our team has been frantically busy today re-jigging our schedules and aircraft to make as many seats as we can available to Sydney.”

In addition to the two 747 services, the airline has added in two additional A320 services on Saturday 1 October. NZ1361 departs Auckland at 1200 and arrives in Sydney at 1230, and NZ1705 departs Auckland at 1630, arriving in Sydney at 1700.

On Friday 30 September and Tuesday 4 October the airline is up-gauging an A320 Auckland-Sydney flight (NZ719) to a 777-200ER service. The same aircraft will operate NZ718 Sydney-Auckland on Friday and Tuesday.

Parton says the airline also recognises that Monday will be a busy day for travel from Sydney, with Kiwis looking to come home after the match. As a result on Monday, NZ719 Auckland to Sydney has been up-gauged from an A320 to a 777-200, with the aircraft to return from Sydney as flight NZ718. There will be an additional service NZ1703 departing Auckland at 1400 arriving Sydney at 1530. The flight will return as NZ1704 departing Sydney at 1630 and arriving Auckland at 2135.