Air New Zealand says it will use the nine-day-fortnight government subsidy if the economic downturn causes the airline to further reduce capacity and consider redundancies.
The Government's package is available to employers with more than 100 employees. Ten employees will be eligible for every redundancy averted.
Those who agree to drop a day's work a fortnight will get the adult minimum hourly wage of $12.50 from the Government - but for only five hours a fortnight.
The Government estimates about 1,600 companies fall into that category, and expects up to 25,000 employees may take it up at a cost of about $20 million.
The concept arose from a jobs summit on 27 February.