FREEDOM AIR'S 8TH BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAY BOOKED OUT IN THE EARLY HOURS
Freedom Air's 8th Birthday give away of one million dollars worth of Trans Tasman travel booked out at 2.40am today,
with the airline's website http://www.freedomair.com receiving more than four million hits.
The 8th birthday promotion comprised 5000 seats to be given away from midday yesterday, with passengers only having to
pay their own taxes and insurance surcharges. Due to run till noon today, the promotion touched down early as the last
seats were booked in the early hours of this morning. Preliminary results suggest that 2,096 Australians and 2,904 New
Zealanders secured the give away flights.
Hitwise, the online competitive intelligence service, reported that the Freedom Air website yesterday captured 77% of
all New Zealand traffic to New Zealand websites in the travel - transport category.
Freedom Air had prepared for the increase in visitors to its site by tripling its web server facilities, increasing its
internet load capacity by 1200% and increasing its internet bandwidth. Still, the sheer numbers of people trying to hit
the site at the same time caused delays in website access.
Michael Young, Freedom Air's acting General Manager, says the 8th birthday promotion was a huge success. "It was our way
of celebrating eight years of Trans Tasman service and a thank you to the people who have supported us," Young says.
"We do acknowledge some people may have been frustrated with delays in accessing our website. But it's important to
remember that it's not everyday an airline offers to pay your fare across the Tasman - so naturally demand was extremely
high," Young says. "Our IT team also worked extremely hard throughout the day to manage internet loads to relieve
pressure on the website so that it did not crash altogether, which would have been a far worse outcome."
Freedom Air's first flight took off from Auckland Airport in 1995, carrying passengers from Auckland to Sydney. Since
then Freedom has carried more than two million passengers. It now operates between ten ports in New Zealand and
Australia, with 52 services per week.
ENDS