Flight operations, while slow, are returning to normal.

Those are the sentiments of Air Pacific CEO and Managing Director John Campbell who said bookings have picked up in line with normal seasonal trends as we enter the peak period of the year, from July to October.

Campbell said while bookings are improving, they do expect that this period will result in overall arrival numbers around 10% less than experienced in 2008, however he added this is a significant improvement on the first six months of the year when arrivals were around 25% below the same months for 2008.

The airline CEO said their flight planning had always anticipated this seasonal improvement in loads and they have therefore scheduled their normal aircraft pattern of flying.

Campbell said where appropriate, they are upgrading the size of the aircraft, for example, for the Melbourne route, they have upgraded from a Boeing 767 to Boeing 747 on the same schedule, adding 200 more seats on those days, also saying this is the same on routes such as Auckland, where they have re-instated two Boeing 737 services which had previously been suspended.