Source: Radio New Zealand
Air NZ is cutting flights due to the price of jet fuel. (File photo) RNZ/ Mark Papalii
Nelson’s mayor says Air New Zealand’s cancellations of flights throughout the country will have a negative impact on the region’s tourism industry, which is only just recovering.
Air New Zealand is set to cancel around 1100 flights affecting thousands of passengers through until early May.
Air NZ chief executive Nikhil Ravishankar told Morning Report services would be cut “proportionally across the board”, meaning both domestic and international, but no routes would be cut altogether. Off-peak services would be the focus of the cuts, he said.
Air New Zealand was facing massive cost pressures, with the conflict in the Middle East increasing the price of jet fuel.
Nelson was one of the places that would be affected by flight cancellations, with mayor Nick Smith telling Morning Report, about 120 flights over six weeks had been cancelled on routes to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Nelson mayor Nick Smith. (File photo) Max Frethey / LDR
“People aren’t in the mind to accept big increases in the fares, and so they’ve done a bit of fare raising as well as removing some of these services.”
Smith said he did appreciate Air NZ had moved flights in the middle of the day rather than early morning and evening which were “crucial” for Nelson.
The region did not have a tertiary hospital, he said, so many people depended on getting medical care in main centres like Wellington and Christchurch so air links were important.
He said the cancellations would have a negative impact on tourism for Nelson, and it was disappointing as the region had only just started to see tourism recover this Summer following the pandemic.
“The bigger worry for us is what’s going to happen at the end of six weeks, of course no one quite knows where the war in the Middle East is going to go.
“We need the support of our national airline so let’s hope by the time we get to May they can return those flights.”
He said he would ask the government to keep an open mind and if things continued perhaps there could be some help for the regions through domestic tourism promotion.
“The key thing for a region like Nelson is that we have those links to those main centres and also to keep Air NZ honest from a fares point of view that there is competition.
“Six weeks we can live with it, if it goes on longer than that we’ll be speaking with both Air NZ and the government.”
On Wednesday, Qantas and Jetstar also confirmed they were increasing airfares due to a doubling in the cost of aviation fuel.
Jetstar said fare increases will vary however flight schedules have not been affected by any fuel-related issues.
Last month, Air NZ announced a half-year loss of $40 million in the six months ended December, compared to last year’s profit of $106m.
The critical Hormuz Strait, a shipping route for up to 20 percent of the world’s oil, is essentially closed due to the conflict in the region.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
