Auckland Airport

Auckland Airport's flight board showed 18 inbound and six departure flights have been cancelled today.

Many are between the city and Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin.

Air New Zealand is offering credit to anyone who wishes to cancel their booking this month.

Flights between Dunedin and Christchurch have also been cancelled.

It is not clear whether the flights were cancelled due to heavy demand adding pressure to Covid-affected crews as the second week of the school holidays begins or weather problems.

Chief executive Adrian Littlewood said the 2021 financial year had been a year like no other, with the lowest number of international arrivals and departures since 1972.

"Covid-19 changed our business overnight bringing constant upheaval to almost every part of our operation," he said.

Reported profit after tax was up 139.4 percent to $464.2 million

Underlying profit fell by $230.3 million to a loss of $41.8 million

Revenue was down 50.4 percent to $281.1 million

No final dividend will be paid

The airport has made plans to segregate at-risk and no-risk travellers - dividing the international terminal into two self-contained processing zones.

Zone A, a safe travel area, will be used exclusively for quarantine-free arrivals and all departures.

Zone B, the health management area, will be used for processing arrivals who are going on to managed isolation facilities.

Auckland Airport chief executive Adrian Littlewood told Morning Report that planning started in August 2020 and its price tag is in the millions.

The net profit for the year ended June fell to $193.9 million compared with $523.5m in the previous year, which included significant property value gains.

However, underlying earnings fell by nearly a third to $188.5m, as operations were severely curtailed from March when border restrictions were put into place and domestic travel all but dried up during the lockdown.

Chief executive Adrian Littlewood said the company had faced some of its most challenging conditions, which were set to continue for some time.

The health check requirement came into effect today, Tuesday 17 March 2020.

Assessments including temperature checks will be carried out by District Health Board nurses at International Departures and are in addition to the specific entry requirements for the travellers final destination.

Earlier today three new cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus in New Zealand, were confirmed by the Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

Dr Bloomfield said all three new cases are people who had returned from international travel.

The company now expects full year underlying earnings between $210m and $235m.

It's previous forecast was between $260m and $270m.

Chief executive Adrian Littlewood said passenger numbers for the first 10 days of this month were down 18 percent on last year, and he expects further decreases in the next few months.

Trading in the company's shares was halted yesterday afternoon as it revised its financial forecasts.

The share price has fallen 16 percent over the past three weeks.

A pipeline that supplies fuel to the airport was closed over the weekend after a leak was discovered on Thursday. It has caused dozens of flights in and out of the city to be delayed or cancelled.

Up to 80,000 litres of jet fuel - or about two tanker loads - spilled from the pipeline at Ruakaka, about 130km north of Auckland.

It was damaged by a digger operating on a farm.

Auckland Airport said 28 flights have been cancelled today, up from 14 yesterday.