Profit's down, demand is down, costs are on the march, capacity still buggered by engine problems.
Here's the real punch in the guts for our national carrier: they won't be back to full capacity for the best of two more years. Foran confirmed it last night.
There's something about a national carrier that should make you feel a bit proud.
When you've been overseas and travelled the world, not seen a Kiwi in ages, jumping onboard that last leg home, hearing the accent - the comfort of Kiwi service.
Foran's had a rough time in the job. Border closures and lockdowns, is there anything worse for the new boss of a global airline?
The Rolls Royce and other engine issues - again, not really his fault.
You can plan around that stuff but even those plans have had to change. The engine makers' timelines for a fit-it job have been pushed out.
And then there's the prices - we all love to whine about the prices, including me.
A return weekend flight from Auckland to Wellington, for the middle of next month, will cost me close to 800 bucks! And guess what? They're going to keep going up - an extra five percent in the near future.
As Foran hits the departure lounge to make way for a new Captain of our national treasure —if we'd still call it that— the question is what would or should he have done differently?
For all the faults and complaints and price hikes, is there anything anyone has suggested that could have fixed these problems while not simultaneously sinking the business, or worse, forcing it to go, once again, cap in hand to the government for another handout?
Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.
9 comments:
It didn't get a bail out last time. It got a loan at a terrible interest rate for the company. And it paid it off in a year I believe.
I’ve just come back to Wellington from Queenstown , flew Jetstar , the Jetstar que was massive , the air Nz que had hardly anyone in it , the cost difference was almost 50 percent less , plus 30 kg each in as many bags as you want , also flew to Auckland return two weeks ago $257 , service was great certainly no different to anz
NZ in a nut shell - the rockstar economy got long-covid ...
NZ needs a new vision and its not, as the left would have you believe, marxism
Greg Foran. Previous job, Walmart. Says it all, really. When a national airline is run by a board and CEO who have no clue about planes, their engineering, aeronautics, what do expect, Ryan? And before him was Unilever marketing man Liquid Luxon. We went from Air Persil to Air Walmart. A country cannot be run by lawyers, accountants, PR, comms, marketing people and discount store salesmen. Go figure, Ryan .. meanwhile our engineers are all leaving NZ because none of these jobs are open to them.
I was most disappointed upon my return to NZ in Dec '21 when flying Air NZ from Auckland to Christchurch after 2 days with Emirates. Maori this, Maori that, pisspoor service. It put Air NZ on a par with my experiences of short-haul flights with Air Niugini and Air Botswana.
I now avoid Air NZ whenever possible. That can be difficult given that company's monopoly over most routes to smaller centres within NZ. Last week I chose to drive from the lower Nth Island up to Kerikeri rather than use Air NZ. Why? Because I now see them as thieves. I had paid for a return flight between Auckland and Blenheim and had travelled one way. A few days before the scheduled return a family emergency and death arose and, in emotional turmoil, I changed the flight wrongly. Within three minutes I realised that I needn't have changed the flight and contacted the airline to try to reinstate my previous seat. I was happy to pay a fee for the airline's trouble. However, the airline refused to check whether my seat had been booked by someone else in those few minutes and required me to pay a huge new, last-minute fare to rebook that flight on the same seat or any other suitable flight, because now the day was close to the day of the flight. Sure, one can argue that it was my fault, but if a company deals with me in such an uncaring, money-grabbing way, it will lose my goodwill. A few years later, Air NZ has by now already lost tens of thousands of dollars of business from me that it otherwise would have had. That's what comes from being callous towards your customers.
I think AirNZ thinks it can hold customers to ransom with their loyalty programme. And some do ignore everything for the sake of points but I think more and more are waking up to the fact a few points does not make up for service and $$$$
If they stopped all the Maori crap and reverted to being a normal airline, I might fly with them again.
In the meantime they still insist on sending me messages in a language which is not the language of its potential customers, and categorically refuse to desist.
Air France may greet you with "bon jour" but greeting every Air NZ passenger with "Kia ora" isn't.
It's childish and insulting.
Wake up AirNZ and realise that probably less than 10% of your clients are Maori .
I find micromanaging 7kg carry-ons annoying. How was 7kgs determined? Based on science? Air NZ, I suppose, makes more money from 7kg vs 10 kg carry-ons. I wish one could see available seats before booking. More power to consumers! Regardless, I think Air NZ is better than many carriers in the world.
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