Latest / Best of Business / John Weekes: NZ Herald aviation journalist on Air New Zealand's bid to focus on the 'premium flyer'

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John Weekes: NZ Herald aviation journalist on Air New Zealand's bid to focus on the 'premium flyer' · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed be
• 0:12
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: All Right. In New Zealand has had the big investor
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  Speaker 2: call today. The big news is the company's reset. They
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  Speaker 2: want to focus on attracting the so called premium flyer.
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  Speaker 2: Now that's obviously your business people, your luxury travelers, your
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  Speaker 2: serially airpoints collectors. And they also want to make a
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  Speaker 2: point of flying more punctually. John Weeks as The Herald's
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  Speaker 2: aviation commentator and with us now, Hey.
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  Speaker 3: John, Hey, Heather.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I mean, as I said earlier, I want to
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  Speaker 2: mock them for this for you know, aiming to be
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  Speaker 2: more punctual, But it is actually very important, isn't it.
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  Speaker 3: It certainly is. And you know, I was just looking
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  Speaker 3: at the aviation analytics company Serrium, which according to the
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  Speaker 3: May report in New Zealand wasn't in the top ten
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  Speaker 3: in the Asia Pacific region. So probably a laudable goal
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  Speaker 3: and one that I'm sure a lot of travelers will
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  Speaker 3: agree with. You know, it's a measurable metric of how
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  Speaker 3: well an airline is doing. One of the other things
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  Speaker 3: that in New Zealand said today is we want to
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  Speaker 3: be the most respected airline in the world, And you
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  Speaker 3: might look at that and go, well, that's so subjective.
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  Speaker 3: How on earth are you going to measure that? Why
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  Speaker 3: not aim for something like being the most profitable or
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  Speaker 3: the most punctual. So I was talking to Andy Boldi
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  Speaker 3: from ForSight Bar about this, and I actually asked them
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  Speaker 3: specifically about that, and he said, well, no, there are
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  Speaker 3: ways you can measure how well respected an airline is.
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  Speaker 3: There are a lot of industry awards. There are a
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  Speaker 3: wide variety of ranking systems, and so you know, when
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  Speaker 3: people say they want to mock things that there's a
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  Speaker 3: degree to which that is understandable because when companies listed
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  Speaker 3: companies come out, there is a lot of corporatese in
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  Speaker 3: these presentations and they, you know, frequently will say things
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  Speaker 3: that seem really laudable, but when you dig into the details,
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  Speaker 3: it's fair to have some questions, how are they going
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  Speaker 3: to achieve?
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  Speaker 2: Johnny, we're talking about the Michelin Stars this evening, and
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  Speaker 2: I see AHI has just one as one another one.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about this because this is important to these guys.
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  Speaker 2: You win an award like this, the business follows and
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  Speaker 2: the same thing is obviously true in New Zealand, right
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  Speaker 2: you become one of the most respected airlines, you just
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  Speaker 2: it just comes to the customers just come to you.
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  Speaker 3: For sure, there'll be that recognition. There's a large community
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  Speaker 3: of highly informed flyers out there. At the extreme ends
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  Speaker 3: you've got the so called av geeks, the aviation geeks,
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  Speaker 3: and then the other end of the spectrum you've got
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  Speaker 3: very occasional casual fliers you don't really mind who they
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  Speaker 3: travel with. But then there's this large section in the middle.
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  Speaker 3: And I suppose in a way that group or cohort
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  Speaker 3: was one of the groups in New Zealand was trying
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  Speaker 3: to address today when they say Nicol Revshanka, the chief executive,
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  Speaker 3: was heaping praise on small business travelers, you know, the
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  Speaker 3: New Zealanders who travel frequently for business, the ones whose
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  Speaker 3: bosses have not yet had the talk with them saying hey,
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  Speaker 3: zoom only. There are still a large number of people
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  Speaker 3: who can or must travel frequently and on those roots
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  Speaker 3: does have competition on the big trunk routes you know Auckland,
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  Speaker 3: christ Church Wellington. So it's got to have a point
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  Speaker 3: of difference between Jetstar. It's going to have a value proposition.
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  Speaker 3: That is, you know that it's able to sell to
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  Speaker 3: people say well, yes, Jetstar is frequently cheaper, but here
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  Speaker 3: are all the other things we can do for you,
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  Speaker 3: and so sort of reading between the lines today, I
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  Speaker 3: guess it was clear that that in New Zealand wants
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  Speaker 3: to capitalize on their group, keep them loyal, keep them flying,
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  Speaker 3: just get them in the habit of flying with the
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  Speaker 3: Hostuality is good.
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  Speaker 2: But what are they going to do? I mean, if
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  Speaker 2: they're going to make it more premium for a business
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  Speaker 2: traveler in New Zealand, what are they going to offer
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  Speaker 2: more food in the COREW Club.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they're looking at upgrading the COREW Club or their
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  Speaker 3: lounge at Auckland, which would probably help. I was talking
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  Speaker 3: to somebody else in the sector who said, look, a
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  Speaker 3: lot of business travelers actually aren't that worried about that.
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  Speaker 3: To them, punctuality is important because their business they got
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  Speaker 3: to leave Auckland and go to some other city first
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  Speaker 3: thing in the morning. Some of them are tradees. They aren't.
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  Speaker 3: They aren't just you know, flash big time capitalists. Some
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  Speaker 3: of them are just you know, working people who are
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  Speaker 3: they need to be at a certain project at a
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  Speaker 3: certain time. Punctuality is critical for that, and in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 3: to its credit, has generally, if you look at Ministry
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  Speaker 3: of Transport stats, generally doing better, not every month, but
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  Speaker 3: usually doing better.
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  Speaker 2: Than getting it again. And they're making an effort there. Hey,
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  Speaker 2: what's the deal with the Dreamliner is? Why have they
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  Speaker 2: delivered delayed the delivery of.
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  Speaker 3: Those Well, they say that the delivery is actually from
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  Speaker 3: Boeing in the United States. Sorry, that delay is from Boeing.
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  Speaker 3: They have not deferred that the whole project. There's a
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  Speaker 3: massive global aircraft backlog of about fifteen thousand odds the
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  Speaker 3: last time I checked. If you combine Boeing and Airbus,
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  Speaker 3: the two biggest manufacturers worth more than a trillion or
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  Speaker 3: two trillion dollars worth aircraft, there's a backlog. Then. I'm
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  Speaker 3: not aware of the exact specifics the way these precise
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  Speaker 3: aircraft have been delayed, but delays have been quite common
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  Speaker 3: in the sector lately, and those delays the ire of
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  Speaker 3: airlines frequently a lot of airlines they won't say publicly,
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  Speaker 3: but privately they're furious about. In my days, and air
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand has been you know, they haven't said anything
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  Speaker 3: particularly scathing about it. They've indicated that those seven, eight,
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  Speaker 3: seven nine Dreamliners will be here. There'll be a bit
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  Speaker 3: of a delay. It may only be a couple of months,
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  Speaker 3: which is relatively manageable for the scale of the airlines
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  Speaker 3: scheme of things.
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  Speaker 2: John, Thank you very much, really appreciated. John Weeks, the
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  Speaker 2: Herald's aviation commentator.
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