Service Continuity - Kaikoura Earthquake

Thursday 1 December

The damage to State Highway 1 caused by the Kaikoura earthquake has forced sections between Blenheim and Christchurch to close (other parts of the transport infrastructure were also damaged). This is a key road for transportation within the South Island.

As part of our commitment to maintaining the service levels that our customers rely on, we have made significant changes to the structure of our South Island delivery network to maintain our overnight delivery service standard. Such significant change has a flow-on effect to other parts of our national network due to its tightly interconnected structure.

New Zealand Couriers has been absorbing the extra operational expenses associated with the changes to our network, but to ensure ongoing business continuation, we are introducing a temporary service continuity surcharge of 0.9% to help us cover a portion of the increased costs to our transport network. This surcharge will be applied to courier services effective from 5 December 2016.

Once SH1 has reopened, our operations have returned to normal and our additional re-routing costs to cover have subsided, we will be able to discontinue the surcharge. We do not have an indication of when this is likely to be however, as the damage to SH1 is extensive and there is currently no definite timeline for when we can expect it to be fully operational once again.

Adding a surcharge is a transparent method of sharing these increased costs, and gives us the flexibility to adjust the figure accordingly, based on conditions improving or worsening.

We thank you for your continued support and look forward to continuing to work with your business by helping you provide your customers with the best possible service.

For more information, please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions document.