Professor Robert MacCulloch: Auckland Airport wants you to miss your flight...

Auckland Airport wants you to miss your flight - because its money ticket is shopping and malls.

Traffic jams to the airport caused mass panic in Auckland over the weekend as fliers struggled to get to their flights because a huge new mall with over a hundred shops had opened nearby. It jammed George Bolt Memorial Drive, which is the airport road. So who owns it?

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Its the World Wrestling Federation.

Two Big Monopolies Slug it Out - Auckland Airport versus Air NZ.

Air NZ is complaining that Auckland Airport is a monopoly - passing on capital expenditure charges arising from its airport re-development to the airline. Not to be outdone, Auckland Airport is firing back - saying Air NZ's monopoly over domestic air travel is one of the most powerful in the world and the airline wants a small crappy airport to stop more competitors. Who's the dummy loser in this fight between two big fatties, neither of which is constrained by market discipline? You and me, of course. We're the ones paying and queueing.

Kate Hawkesby: Someone needs to front on the state of Auckland Airport

With all the travelling that’s taken place these last few weeks with school holidays and people bailing to beat the winter blues, I’m confounded more and more by the state of Auckland airport.

It’s a shambles.

Now during and immediately after Covid, you can accept staffing’s an issue, that a few things aren’t right, that it’s not running as well as it should be. You can forgive the dysfunction.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Michael Wood cannot come back from this

The scales have just tipped for Michael Wood, haven’t they?

He cannot come back from this, his time as Transport Minister has got to be over.

We've just learned in the last two hours that the Cabinet Office didn’t ask Michael Wood half a dozen times whether he’d sold his shares yet.

It was a dozen times. That’s right, 12 times.

Kate Hawkesby: Air NZ and Auckland Airport are not up to scratch

 

My brother travels a lot, both for work and to visit family – my nephew's studying in the US. So he’s made about three trips during the pandemic, done MIQ twice, and since MIQ was dropped he’s made about three more trips, he left again on another one yesterday. Given I’m not flying anywhere I always appreciate the update on his experiences. 

Yesterday, he sends me a text from the airport, he’s mad. Mad because all the stuff he’s moaned about on all his previous trips are still not fixed or addressed, in fact he reckons it’s the worst it’s ever been. How’s that possible? Given we keep hearing from Auckland airport that they’re stepping up their game, given we keep hearing from Air NZ that they’re looking to streamline services, given we keep hearing from the Government that they want to make it smoother for people to travel. Newsflash – it’s still not any of those things.