Air New Zealand Must be Audited

Published 17 Feb 2015

Air New Zealand’s Louise Strutters latest effort to deflect criticism of their high Hawke’s Bay airfares have resulted in a response that is full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and is lacking in credibility. 

Their claims include:

1. Hawke’s Bay has not missed out on new nightrider flights.

This contradicts the company’s own official announcement that from February 20 through until March 19, every seat on additional late night services on selected regional and trunk routes linking Auckland, Nelson and Christchurch will be priced at $29 one way and Manawatu may included  later. We are now told that due to problems with Airways New Zealand, Hawke’s Bay presents challenges beyond their control.

2. Replacing 50 seat Q300 Bombardier aircraft with 68 seat ATR’s has increased capacity by 19% over the past 5 years. 

In fact if all flights had been upgraded the increase would be 36%. There is no way of knowing if their figures are true but the claimed increase does not tally with actual numbers through HB Airport. For 2014 there were 456 672 passengers compared with 406 000 in 2009, a 12.3% increase over 5 years.  However for 6 years from 2008 when passengers totalled 449 126 the increase was only 1.7%. 

3. Over the past year airfares on all three Hawke’s Bay routes, Auckland Wellington and Christchurch have been 10% lower than 5 years ago.  

In contrast on Feb 10 last year CEO Christopher Luxton was reported as claiming that average  fares from Hawke’s Bay to Wellington and Auckland had not changed in the previous 5 years. Additionally on Sept 1 he was reported as claiming regional fares had not changed significantly over the past 6 years,  yet at that time Informetrics pointed out official Statistics showed domestic fares had increased by 9.1% in the previous year alone. 

4. Hawkes Bay is benefiting from their new $ 169  “Got to Go “ fares available 90 minute before departure and introduced from Feb 1. 

In fact the airline discontinued $ 69 stand by fares on May 6 2013, and abandoned the Starfish program offering discounts of 15 & 30% for regular flyers on Feb 12 2014 meaning travellers are now actually worse off than previously.

Clearly the airline is simply plucking figures out of thin air every time they are challenged on the issue. In the light of these inconsistencies and widespread dissatisfaction it is high time the Commerce Commission, Government or some other official agency conducted a full audit of Air New Zealand’s regional operations.