UPDATE Air New Zealand expects 1H pre-tax earnings of $166.8 mln, on target to exceed FY earnings

UPDATE Air New Zealand expects 1H pre-tax earnings of $166.8 mln, on target to exceed FY earnings
(Includes dollar figure in lead, headline, removes 3rd graph) By Tina Morrison Dec. 10 (BusinessDesk) - Air New Zealand, the national carrier, expects first half pre-tax earnings of $166.8 million on optimism about its December bookings and on certainty about redundancy costs. The Auckland-based carrier said it expects normalised earnings before tax to increase about 20 percent in the six months ending Dec. 31, including about $10 million of redundancy costs from $139 million a year earlier. Air New Zealand said it has made "good progress"...