Cheap Flights from Air New Zealand – I don’t think so!

September 5, 2009 by
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Life in New Zealand 

I woke up this morning to find an email from Air New Zealand offering me cheap flights. “Oh Great” I thought – “A cheap trip to Rarotonga would go down rather nicely right now”.

But No.

The offer, in GB£ is for Brits to fly to New Zealand with a cheap side flight to Australia. Now aside from the insult of our National Airline dragging tourist dollars to Australia – why the hell do I get offered cheap flights to the place I already live.

And why oh why – do we not get the same cheap offer to fly on our holidays back to the UK.

Because the price of flying from the UK to NZ is now £725 (£779 if you really want to go to Australia afterwards). At current exchange rates – that’s $1740.

If I want to book a flight at the same time (April till June Next Year) how much will it cost me?

$2400.

It’s a pity we cannot pay for our flights to take advantage of the low exchange rate. What Air New Zealand are doing is charging the $NZ rate but applying a 3:1 exchange rate. If they actually charged according to the real rate right now – it would cost about £1000.

So if any of my friends back in Blighty are reading this – this is why I won’t be coming back for years – cos it’s still cheaper for you to get over here. Even if the exchange rate changed and went back up – Air New Zealand still consistently charge Kiwis a helluva lot more for taking the exact same flight to get out of New Zealand as they do for people coming to visit.

Gits.

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Comments

4 Comments on Cheap Flights from Air New Zealand – I don’t think so!

  1. Sarah on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 5:42 pm

    2. Grrrrr, makes me mad too. We have very few family who’ve actually made the trip to see us in the 12 year’s we’ve been here. We are now on one income and have 2 children to pay for – but still they keep asking, ‘When are you coming to see us?’. We manage once every 3 year’s – but we are beginning to make the time between visits longer since having had children. When we do go we make huge personal financial sacrifices. And when we get there many people can’t understand why we can’t zip through every county of the UK to see them. They assume that since we’ve travelled round the world we can surely manage a 4 hour drive on a British motorway to see them….

    I could go on, but I shan’t! x

  2. Juli Ryan on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 6:45 pm

    3. Earlier in the year, it was similar situation with flights to America on Qantas. And I am in a similar position to Sarah. It is terribly expensive for Kiwis to travel overseas (compared to what it costs for them to visit NZ).

  3. Avalon on Mon, 7th Sep 2009 5:43 pm

    4. Sarah and Juli – I really hear you :)

    It truly scares me when I sit down and look at the costs of our trips back to the UK. Friends do thier best, putting us up when they can, but even traveling around and getting food is just so expensive on our salaries here. Even we struggled, and we a/ dont have children and b/ earn a healthy salary.

    But this discrimination by the airlines is just not on. Its not just Air NZ that do it – they all do.

    Surely fair trade says it should cost the same to fly, on the very same plane, if you book the ticket on the same day, no matter which way you fly.

    Grrrrrr!

  4. Avalon on Mon, 7th Sep 2009 5:44 pm

    5. Oh, and my favorite piece of eye-watering money spending on holiday:

    The time it cost me $30 (NZD) to buy a cappucino and cake in Venice.

    It wasn’t even a nice coffee :(

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