Latest / Best of Business / Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why is Air New Zealand chasing their customers away?

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why is Air New Zealand chasing their customers away? · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talks'd be follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Right, let's talk about Ean New Zealand. If I was
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand, I would feel pretty beaten up after
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the weekend's opinion pieces because, as you know, Bruce Cottrel,
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  Speaker 2: who we spoke to earlier in the show, wrote a
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  Speaker 2: piece in one newspaper complaining that if Air New Zealand
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: want to charge as much as they do, then they
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: have to do the job better and be on time
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  Speaker 2: more often. And then Sam Stubbs wrote a piece in
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  Speaker 2: another newspaper telling them to stop overcharging domestic travelers. Now,
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  Speaker 2: I cannot explain the timing. I can't explain why both
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  Speaker 2: those guys wrote harsh pieces about the same airline on
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  Speaker 2: the same weekend. But what's weirder about it is that
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  Speaker 2: I almost did exactly the same thing. I almost had
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: a bit of a rant about Ean New Zealand myself
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  Speaker 2: this weekend because I had to pull out of an
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  Speaker 2: event on account of their ticket prices. What it was is,
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  Speaker 2: the husband and I were planning to go to a
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  Speaker 2: thing in Wellington, started doing all the organizing, had the
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  Speaker 2: babysitter covered organized to work out of Wellington for the day,
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  Speaker 2: went to book the flight, saw the flight prices pretty
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  Speaker 2: close to one thousand dollars return per person and I
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  Speaker 2: could not justify that. That is ridiculous. Now, I don't
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  Speaker 2: have a problem, as I've said a thousand times, due
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  Speaker 2: with Air New Zealand making as much money as it
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  Speaker 2: wants to. I wanted to make money. I'm a shareholder.
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  Speaker 2: We all are shareholders through the government. It does have
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  Speaker 2: to balance that with customer loyalty, though, because Ere New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand is now so overpriced that I cannot justify using it.
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  Speaker 2: For the first time in my working life, I don't
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  Speaker 2: have CORU anymore, I cannot justify the expense. And while
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  Speaker 2: I have the same problem as Bruce Cottrel, I don't
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  Speaker 2: want to fly jet Star out of loyalty to Air
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand. I reckon give it a year. I reckon
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  Speaker 2: by this time next year, I'm going to be flying
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  Speaker 2: jets Star. The flight from Auckland to Wellington on Air
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand for the event was five hundred dollars per
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  Speaker 2: person just one way right Auckland to Wellington five hundred dollars.
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  Speaker 2: The same flight on Jetstar at a better time was
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  Speaker 2: about one hundred and fifty dollars. That's in New Zealand's
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  Speaker 2: problem right there. They're chasing their customers away. One day
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  Speaker 2: they're going to wake up. They don't realize it now,
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  Speaker 2: but one day they're going to wake up and they're
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  Speaker 2: going to be surprised at how popular Jetstar is, and
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  Speaker 2: they're going to regret the fact that heaps of us
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  Speaker 2: tried out the Orange Bird and found it's not that bad,
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  Speaker 2: and in New Zealand will want us back and struggle
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  Speaker 2: to get us back. And maybe the reason that Bruce
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  Speaker 2: and Sam and maybe even me criticized Air New Zealand
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  Speaker 2: on the same weekend is that we're only saying what
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  Speaker 2: everybody's already thinking.
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