Air New Zealand customers will be able to link their My Vaccine Pass with Air New Zealand’s app from Thursday, giving vaccinated customers a more seamless experience when flying domestically, the airline says.
From December 14, anyone over 12 years old will need to be vaccinated or produce a negative Covid-19 test in order fly domestically on Air New Zealand.
The airline said customers would be able to link their vaccine pass to the Air New Zealand app, allowing them to get their boarding pass straight to their phone.
Airpoints members would be able to confirm their vaccination status by scanning their My Vaccine Pass using the app, which would then be verified.
A record of the verification would be kept, but not a copy of the QR code, or pass itself, it said. Customers would be able to delete the record at any time from directly within their profile, it said.
Customers who did not want to upload their My Vaccine Pass to their Airpoints profile would need to have their My Vaccine Pass verified at a check in kiosk, or if checking-in online they would be asked to submit it online, it said. Air New Zealand would then verify the pass.
Once complete, a record was made in Air New Zealand’s system that the customer had been verified for the relevant flight. The QR code or pass document itself was not retained by Air New Zealand.
Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran recently told a presentation hosted by retail investment platform Sharesies that the airline would begin the vaccination mandate with a soft launch on December 13 before it came into effect for everyone the next day.
Foran said those who were not vaccinated would need to show their negative test to an Air New Zealand team member at airports who would then release the boarding pass.
He said there were only two airlines in the world he knew of that had mandated domestic travel, the other being Air Canada, which was required to because of a government mandated.
“Clearly we absolutely think it’s the right thing to do,” Foran said.
Foran said there was overwhelming support from customers to make vaccination a requirement for domestic travel. He said the Airpoints scheme, which had well over 3.5 million members, was “vitally important” to the airline.
“We see a loyalty business here which is critically important and one of the three growth areas along with growing domestic and optimising international.”
Air New Zealand had been investing in the programme to add more features, he said.
“We want those people engaged in the ecosystem that we want to create around Air New Zealand.”
Air New Zealand general manager loyalty Kate O’Brien said it was expecting more than 300,000 customers to be travelling over the second half of December.
“The easiest way to travel this summer will be to link the vaccine pass to your Airpoints account,” O’Brien said.
She said about 2.5 million of its 3.5 million Airpoints members were in New Zealand.
Covid-19 had provided an opportunity for the airline to step back and reassess what it was doing with the loyalty programme, she said.
“It is a big area of opportunity for the airline.”
She said a three-year transformation strategy aimed at growing the programme had been developed.
It was working to bring in new partners, launch new products, and give better benefits to its members by creating more opportunities to earn and spend Airpoints, she said.
One of the ways it was looking to achieve that was through its recently announced Air New Zealand credit card which will launch in early 2022.
More detail on Stuff.co.nz
