From October next year, Air New Zealand has confirmed it will withdraw its daily London-Los Angeles service.
Air New Zealand acting chief executive, Jeff McDowall mentioned that while it is hard to bid farewell such an iconic route, the airline must remain focused on markets with the greatest opportunity for long-term profitable growth.
Air New Zealand is strongest when operating direct flights to and from the home base in Auckland and this reset will put them in the best possible position to take advantage of increasing demand across the Pacific Rim.
So far, visitor growth to New Zealand is strongest from North America and performance of their new service between Chicago and Auckland is exceeding expectations.
London-Los Angeles has been an important link which connected Europe to New Zealand since its launch in 1982. It has been a flagship route for Air New Zealand.
The changing customer preferences resulted in several ways they wish to fly between London and Auckland which has doubled in the past decade.
It was observed last year that less than seven percent of all airlines travellers between London and Auckland chose to fly via Los Angeles.
