Air NZ is now led by a chap who used to work at Walmart. But its pricing on domestic routes is anything like the budget basement prices that made Walmart successful in the US. So its certainly no Air Walmart, at least when it comes to buying tickets. Not only does it have monopoly powers on domestic routes, Air NZ also garnered international publicity when it stated that it was committed to a specified reduction in its emissions by 2030.
James Shaw, the former Green Party Leader, tied his whole political career to the idea that such targets were vital for nations and companies. Now he's left politics, Shaw sits on the "Sustainability Advisory Panel" of Air NZ. Within a short time of him getting that lovely position, the airline announced it was dumping its emissions targets. Putting leading figures from the Green movement onto one's corporate website by giving them formal roles to bolster sales by branding and marketing an airline as "Green" when that same airline is only pretending to be green, and now dumps its commitments, goes by a name. It is called "Greenwashing". Yesterday in the UK, Virgin was charged with "misleading advertising" by the Advertising Standards Board for saying it ran a "100% sustainable flight" when that was not true. In NZ an expert on environmental matters was quoted by Radio NZ as saying that Air NZ's targets were never "realistic". Isn't it time the likes of Otago University, which has not told the truth about it being in the top 1% of Universities in the world, in order to boost student numbers, and Air NZ, which stated it was committed to an emissions reduction path and put former Green Party Leader Shaw on its website and Advisory Panel to boost sales, when its claims were also hot air, are similarly charged for making up advertising claims?
Sources:
https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/sustainability-advisory-panel
https://www.ft.com/content/b14ac2a7-5c1b-4c2d-baa2-d9d00e284219
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
Sources:
https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/sustainability-advisory-panel
https://www.ft.com/content/b14ac2a7-5c1b-4c2d-baa2-d9d00e284219
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
But Robert, this is “Aotearoa” the land of the wrong white crowd, formerly advertised as “100% Pure New Zealand”. It’s a place where you can lay claim to anything you want to. Some even claim that they “own” the precipitation that falls from the sky. And some in the media actually believe that!
And the wind beneath their wings belongs to Maori according to Debbie Packer.
I am of an age, where I recall we had a National Airline - National Airways Corp (NAC), who ran, with efficiency the NZ Internal airways network. The origins of the current ANZ, was TEAL< who flew to Australia, Pacific islands plus other destinations. As TEAL 'morphed" into ANZ, it acquired a CEO, who was "best mate to Robert Muldoon", who (it was reported) bent Muldoon's ear to amalgamate NAC into the developing ANZ Brand. The then CEO of NAC - went public and stated it would be a "bad thing", as he foresaw this merger as "not being in the interest of the NZ travelling public".
The merger occurred, and within months it became more expensive to fly Auckland to Invercargill that it did Auckland to Sydney. Of recent times, the same analogy still "resounds".
And with the increase of airfares across NZ, I wonder when ANZ will face the "truth" they have made a mistake?
It is also of interest, that ANZ did not tolerate competition
and went of its wat to ensure such competition was "quashed" both internally and across the Tasman to/from Australia (similar to Foodstuffs as it to developed within NZ).
ANZ also "got bitten (in a place I can not name) over its move into Australia, with acquiring ANSET - QANTAS saw to that.
Strange that QANTAS subsidiary - JetStar can fly within NZ, but others are limited to a "tigermoth" service if they get to operate.
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