Air New Zealand

Hospitality, accommodation and tourism operators say while the district has never been a magnet for North Islanders over the summer holidays, the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and fears of a snap lockdown appear to have discouraged many from travelling far from home.

Around the Basin general manager Steve Norton said trading at his bike-hire and tour business was down on 12 months ago, when visitors felt more confident about the future.

Even those who had come were wary about booking activities in advance, Norton said.

"We've been surprised by how slow it's been."

Air NZ's first commercial flight to Fiji amid the Covid-19 pandemic arrived in Nadi last week.

Chris Chand, of Fiji Airports, said the flight from Auckland carried repatriated Fijians and tourists.

With New Zealand's borders closed to Fiji, customer loads have been understandably quite low, the airline said in a statement.

"We have been operating one return Nadi flight per week through the pandemic which has been mostly cargo into Nadi," he said.

In May, the airline grounded most of its seven 777-300 aircraft until the end of the 2020 calendar year. It signalled it was unlikely to fly its eight 777-200 aircraft in the foreseeable future and began preparing to send these into long term storage overseas.

In a release, the airline said four of the aircraft will be stored in Victorville in the Californian desert and three would remain in Auckland where they can be used if required.

From the end of March until the 31st of May the airline will only fly to three countries from Auckland, once a week.

In a statement, Air New Zealand said there will be one return service to Nadi, one return service to Rarotonga, and one return service to Niue.

Routes to Tonga and Samoa have been suspended.

Norfolk Island will have two services a week, one from Brisbane and one from Sydney.

Some New Zealanders with Maori heritage wear tattoos to mark their genealogy and heritage.

The airline said from 1 September, all employees will be able to display "non-offensive" tattoos at work.

It said there was growing acceptance of tattoos, particularly as a means of personal expression.

The airline's tattoo restrictions attracted criticism and some accused it of hypocrisy for using other aspects of Maori culture - such as language and symbols - in its marketing efforts.

Air New Zealand said it had diverted several flights to Fiji over the past few days to top up on fuel.

It said the temporary shut-down of the damaged pipeline was affecting all airlines operating in and out of Auckland Airport.

The airport said it does not know how long the problem would take to fix, but it said it was in regular contact with the company responsible for the pipeline, Refinery New Zealand, to know when it would be operational again.