160000 expected through Auckland Airport as school holiday travel ...

Thousands are expected to take to the roads and skies over the April school holidays. Photo / 123RF

As the school holidays kick off, hundreds of families are set to take to the roads and skies to head away on vacation.

For those travelling internationally though, the main hope is the ongoing renovations at Auckland Airport won’t lead to the usual “travel chaos” many of us have come to expect.

So how are those developments going, and is the travel industry as a whole on the road to recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic?

Business travel editor Grant Bradley told The Front Page Auckland Airport alone is expecting 160,000 people to pass through it this weekend - close to the population of Tauranga.

“That’s still about 15 per cent down on this time in 2019. So, that capacity hasn’t been fully restored,” he said.

“Throughout the rest of the two weeks, there’s lots of folks flying in all directions. They’ve got popular routes, the usual ones to Australia, the US, Singapore, Fiji, China, and the domestic destinations that people are flying to - Christchurch, Wellington, Queenstown, Dunedin and Nelson.”

The airport, airlines and border agencies will be hoping for smoother travel for passengers than during some peak periods in the past two years.

Staff shortages, equipment failures, rebuilding work at the airport and bad weather have plagued the aviation system during its recovery from the pandemic, often occurring when passenger numbers peak.

“There’s a very complex ecosystem, and if one part of it is a little bit skewed or gets out of rhythm, it does affect the entire system.

“Since travel recovered from the pandemic over the last couple of years, it’s been pretty bumpy. This is largely due to the difficulty of staffing up.

“[You’ve got] airlines, the people that service airlines, the ground handlers, baggage handlers, and then throughout the aviation system, there’s all these other operators. You’ve got government agencies at borders, MPI and aviation security. And then you’ve got the airport itself.”

Bradley said getting to the airport early remains a reasonable way to mitigate the possibility of missing a flight.

“If you can avoid travelling at those real peak times during the day, you should. You don’t want to clash with the business market. So if you’re flying domestically, that’s the beginning and end of the day.”

Busiest days at Auckland Airport over the April 2024 school holidays

International travel

Sunday, April 14: Busiest day for international departures.

Sunday, April 28: Busiest day for international arrivals.

Domestic travel

Friday, April 19: Busiest day for domestic departures.

Thursday, April 11: Busiest day for domestic arrivals.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about the latest in travel and if it has bounced back from the pandemic.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.