Air New Zealand has asked its staff to volunteer in their own time to fill in gaps at short-staffed airports during the busy school holiday period.

Staff at three of the country’s biggest airports were asked to “muck in” to help reduce the pressure on colleagues during the busiest winter holiday season in three years.

“Like our flights, your wonderful skills are in demand,” a message sent to staff read.

“We’re looking for some wonderful willing Air New Zealand volunteers who can help us to spread some magic with our customers during the school holiday period (now through to 25 July) at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch airports.

“This will need to be in your own time or with manager’s approval and we hope you can come help out.”

The airline is expected to have its busiest winter holiday period since the pandemic began, with more than 672,000 customers booked to travel domestically and internationally.

Volunteers would help to support airport teams with queue management, directing customers and helping to reduce the stress of travel for the airline’s customers, the message said.

“To help alleviate some of the pressure on our frontline teams we put a call out for volunteers to help in our busy airports” Chloe Surridge, Air New Zealand group general manager, said.

She said the airline had offered the volunteer-based opportunity during the busy sumer holidays before, and would allow people from across the business “to experience another part of the airline”.

Volunteers are being asked to work a few hours in the early morning or evening peak travel times to help with check-in counters and bag drop, Ms Surridge continued.

The airline has already had “great interest” in volunteers “from all over the business”, including senior leaders and office based teams.

“We always get overwhelming support from our people for these opportunities and in the past, we’ve had to turn people away,” she said.

“The Air New Zealand team always want to muck in and help ensure our customers get to where they need to be.

“We have had employees calling the airport teams wanting to help and we’re really pleased to be able to make this happen.”

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