Air NZ to connect Christchurch and Adelaide

Air New Zealand has announced that from later this year, they will begin flights from Christchurch to Adelaide using their A320NEOs.

One of Air New Zealand’s A321NEOs in Christchurch | Photo: Noah Stohr-Waldren

The flights will begin on October 27th this year and will operate until late March 2026. The new route will operate twice per week leaving Christchurch at 6:50PM on Mondays and 5:50PM on Fridays. The return flight will operate on at 7AM on both Tuesdays and Sundays.

The route will be flown by Air New Zealand’s modern fleet of Airbus A320NEO aircraft.

Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran said “Christchurch to Adelaide was always on our list of things to do,” however, engine availability was a large factor in the expansion.

The new route will open up roughly 15,000 seats for passengers wanting to fly between the two sister cities.

On the same day, Air NZ confirmed they will increase capacity on several domestic routes between Auckland and the South Island. The airline has been able to get new Pratt and Whitney engines which allows the airline to return some aircraft from being AOG into active service. Two new A321NEOs are also expected to arrive later this year.

Flights from Auckland to Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin will soon see more frequent flights by their Airbus A321NEOs, increasing capacity over busy periods.

The increased capacity on domestic flights will add more than 36,000 seats to their existing network.

These announcements come just a week after the airline confirmed they will up-gauge their Christchurch to Hamilton route, with some flights being upgraded to A320s instead of the current ATR-72s.