Air New Zealand has announced an increase in the number of passengers during the last month. Air New Zealand has carried 883,000 passengers in the month of May and this figure is 3.9% higher than the last year.

The airline has said that adverse weather caused challenges in May, thereby, 85% of the domestic flights departed within 10 minutes of the planned departure time.

The fall of 1.1 % demand on Tasman and Pacific route led to the 3% reduction in the capacity of airline. This change in the trans-Tasman load factor, which calculates the load of flights, increased to 78.3%. Last year May, this figure was less by 1.5%. Also, the group load factor of the airline increased by 1.9% as against the last year.

There is an increment in the short haul passenger number by 4.2% and that for long haul passengers is 1.9%. The load factor on short haul flights was 80.1% and on the long haul it was 71.9 %.

Though, the yield of the Group, in this financial year is decreased by 7.9% as compared to last year.

The airline is also working on to grow the domestic capacity by 4.2% from this September. The Airline plans to make these changes in order to deal with demands of the Rugby World Cup in 2011.