Air New Zealand has announced there will be fewer flights on their domestic routes.

On the back of yesterday's announcement of multi-billion-dollar aircraft purchases, the airline's announced it's cutting capacity across the local network.

The two per cent cut will happen over the next financial year, after a weakening growth outlook.

An airline spokeswoman said from July it would begin making some mostly off-peak frequency reductions to domestic main trunk routes plus some regional services out of Nelson, Napier, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Blenheim and Tauranga.

She stressed that this was a reduction in frequency rather than pulling out of centres and the airline ''remained committed to all routes in New Zealand.''

House of Travel commercial director Brent Thomas says that this could mean a big impact on the regions, with the possibility of them losing important flights. 

"If you are going to take two per cent out of the whole of the network and you're only going to apply to it certain regions, then it is going to be more than two per cent for those regions."

He told Heather du Plessis-Allan that we could also fares go up.

"To be fair to New Zealand, we do know that fuel prices have gone up considerably over the last 12 months, and they do need to recover those costs. So that is something that is likely to impact in terms of pricing going forward."

Thomas says the cuts could also mean cheaper fares aren't offered as regularly as they are today.

Air New Zealand did reduce prices in February, but Thomas says that we don't know how much of an impact those cuts have had. 

The airline has said that softening domestic demand has contributed to this decision. Thomas says that he hasn't seen that, with people tending to gravitate towards cheaper fares. 

"There has certainly been a boom for travel over the last two to three years."