Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Duane Emeny: Air Chathams CEO calls for government support as jet fuel prices rise

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Duane Emeny: Air Chathams CEO calls for government support as jet fuel prices rise · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A local airlines putting out an sos to the government.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Jet fuel prices have almost doubled since the beginning of
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the war in Iran air New Zealand's and strife. They're
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: hiking international fears by up to ninety bucks. Smaller players
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  Speaker 1: in trouble too. Dwayne m and a Air Chatham CEO
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  Speaker 1: with me this morning. Dwayne, good morning, Yeah, very good morning, Row.
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  Speaker 1: Are you yeah, very well, thank you. You'll be watching
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  Speaker 1: the price of jet fuel pretty closely. Has it come
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  Speaker 1: back at all?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely watching it a lot more than it was
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  Speaker 2: two weeks ago. Yet it has come back. Just check
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  Speaker 2: this morning. I think it's sitting around eighty five dollars
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  Speaker 2: a barrel for Brent crude. The jet fuel price that
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  Speaker 2: crack spreads a little bit harder to get my hands on,
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  Speaker 2: but good to see that that Brent crude price dropping.
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  Speaker 1: At this stage. Are you putting up prices?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Here, we're following suit with the other regional and
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  Speaker 2: the airlines within New Zealand. We're looking at a twenty
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  Speaker 2: dollars increase to our standard fares, which obviously is not
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  Speaker 2: going to cover all of this escalation, but it helps
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  Speaker 2: a little bit. So we did that overnight. Our team
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  Speaker 2: were working on that overnight.
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  Speaker 1: Does that effect demand, do you think or do people
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  Speaker 1: just going to fly with you anyway and wear it
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  Speaker 1: for now?
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  Speaker 2: Well? I hope they'll still fly with us. I think
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  Speaker 2: it's quite important that they do. But that is the balance, right.
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  Speaker 2: The more you put the price up, the more unaffordable
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  Speaker 2: it becomes, and people just don't travel, and then it's
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  Speaker 2: a worse situation for an airline when that happens.
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  Speaker 1: What do you want the government to do?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I've been having a lot of thought about
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  Speaker 2: this the last couple of days. I think the key
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  Speaker 2: thing we're really asking for is just a more proactive approach. Right,
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  Speaker 2: so we all know this is a really volatile situation.
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  Speaker 2: It's changed and escalated quickly in just a matter of days.
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  Speaker 2: So what I think we really want the government to
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  Speaker 2: do is say, well, you know, if this thing pushes
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  Speaker 2: out past the month, two months, three months, what can
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  Speaker 2: we actually do tangibly to support regional air kind activity?
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  Speaker 2: And there are a number of options to know that
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  Speaker 2: I spoke recently about some of them, which are those
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  Speaker 2: costs that the government may have some control over through
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  Speaker 2: SOEs and regulatory departments. So I think it's really just
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  Speaker 2: if you've got this Ministerial committee sitting together and you're
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  Speaker 2: thinking about these things, you know, have a specific focus
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  Speaker 2: on aviation, and say, well, proactively, what could we do,
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  Speaker 2: what could we start working on now? It's put a
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  Speaker 2: mechanism in place to support these guys if it goes longer.
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  Speaker 1: Have you had any money come through from the regional airlines,
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  Speaker 1: the loans for regional airlines, the money that the government announced?
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  Speaker 2: No, no, we're working through it. So you know, it
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  Speaker 2: is a process. There's a lot of tax payer money,
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  Speaker 2: so we've got to do it proptly. So we've been
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  Speaker 2: working with Carnoa and hopefully by the end of this
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  Speaker 2: month the Ministerial Group will meet and make some decisions
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  Speaker 2: on that.
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  Speaker 1: Dwaine, appreciate your time this morning. Dwayne M and E. E.
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  Speaker 1: Chatham's CEO.
• 3:00
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