New Zealand Aviation NEWS: Domestic Airbus island-hopping its way to NZ

Air New Zealand's new all-black A320 plane for domestic routes is about to set off on its three-day delivery flight to New Zealand, island-hopping across the Pacific to arrive in Auckland early next week.

In a route similar to earlier days when international aircraft did not have long-range fuel tanks, it is stopping over in Gander, Canada, then Denver, Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Samoa on its way to Auckland.

At Los Angeles, on Sunday morning (local time), it will be showcased to aviation enthusiasts at LAX airport, while the flight crew sleep.

The aircraft - painted black with a silver fern to mark the airline's sponsorship of the All Blacks - was recently flown from the Airbus manufacturing facility in Toulouse, France, to Hamburg, Germany, for a fit-out of the cabin interior. The ZK-OAB registration is the only Air NZ A320 to be painted black.

Air New Zealand has 14 of the 171-seat aircraft on order, and this first one will be brought onto domestic routes from early February. Another three will be delivered this year and the remaining 10 progressively through until 2016, coinciding with the expiry of leases for Boeing 737-300.

The airline has said that the larger aircraft will let it boost domestic jet capacity by nearly 30 percent. The current 737 fleet is configured with 133 seats.

A test flight before an earlier A320 delivery, from Perpignan -- 200km east of Toulouse - to Germany killed five New Zealanders and the two German pilots in November 2008, after a combination of pilot error and faulty sensors caused it to crash into the Mediterranean.

3. Market boosted by aviation sector

Auckland International Airport led gainers on the NZX 50, reaching a 2-½-year high in the wake of its upbeat economic report last week.

Air New Zealand rose after posting a jump in traffic for December.

The NZX 50 rose 5.615, or 0.2 per cent, to 3358, heading for its third daily advance. Trading was quieter than usual, with Wellington market participants away for the anniversary day holiday.

Auckland Airport rose 1.8 per cent to $2.29. The shares reached the highest level since mid-2008, extending their gains since the company released a report showing it may account for almost 20 per cent of national gross domestic product and sustain more three quarters of a million jobs by 2031, based on the flow of freight and passengers through the airport.

Air New Zealand, the national carrier, rose 0.7 per cent to $1.43 after traffic figures showed the airline carried 1,322,000 passengers December, 10 per cent more than the same month a year before.

Load factor rose by 1.3 per cent to 86.3 percent compared to the previous period, with revenue passenger kilometers up 7.7 per cent to 2,861 million.

Much of the increase was built on the back of a 10.9 per cent increase in short haul passenger numbers to 1,140,000, broken down to a 10.7 percent lift in the domestic market and a 13.9 per cent increase in Tasman/Pacific.

APN News & Media, which publishes the New Zealand Herald and operates the Radio Network, was unchanged at $2.40 on the NZX after it said the diversified nature of its operations is likely to offset the effects of Queensland floods, with minimal impact on the bottom line.

The company that said while it expects the Queensland economy to rebound strongly once mop-up operations are complete, advertising revenues from small businesses, retailers and real estate are expected to remain under pressure, having already shown some signs of weakness ahead of the floods.

Hallenstein Glasson Holdings, the clothing retailer, fell 1.2 per cent to $4.05.

New Zealand's retailing sector remains under pressure, with November's core retail sales declining 0.2 per cent to $4.24 billion, the second monthly decline. A gain of 0.5 per cent was expected, based on a Reuters survey.

The New Zealand dollar will probably stay within recent ranges this week as investors prepare for the Reserve Bank to keep interest rates on hold this week.

Five of six economists and strategists in a BusinessDesk survey expect the kiwi will respect recent price-action and stay in the middle of its medium-term range between US74 cents and US76 cents ahead of this week's central bank meetings in New Zealand and the US.

The lone dissenter expects the kiwi to head lower amid heightened expectations of rising interest rates in China.

Economists expect central bank Governor Alan Bollard will keep the official cash rate at 3 per cent after New Zealand dodged a double-dip recession last year, and last week's benign inflation and tepid retail sales data won't have given him reason to tighten rates early.

Analysts now expect Bollard will start lifting rates in September, with 68 basis points of hikes priced in over the next 12 months, according to the Overnight Index Swap curve.

The kiwi rose to US75.82 cents from US75.46 cents last week.

NEHA JAIN

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