Latest / Best of Business / Brent Thomas: House of Travel chief operating officer on Air New Zealand pausing flights between Auckland and New Caledonia

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Brent Thomas: House of Travel chief operating officer on Air New Zealand pausing flights between Auckland and New Caledonia · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Heather Do for Sea Islands, The New Zealand.
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  Speaker 3: Has suspended all of its flights to New Mia, New
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  Speaker 3: Caledonia until the end of September. It's because the violence
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  Speaker 3: still continues. Eight people have now died. Some streets over
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  Speaker 3: there are still barricaded by the pro independence protesters. Now
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  Speaker 3: passengers who are booked with their New Zealand can either
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  Speaker 3: have their flight held in credit or they can get
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  Speaker 3: themselves a full refund. Brent Thomas is the chief operating
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  Speaker 3: officer of House of Travelers with US. Now, Hey, Brent,
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  Speaker 3: good evening, Heather, how many people would be traveling to
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  Speaker 3: New Caledonia between now and then? How many people are affected?
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  Speaker 4: So it's not a major destination from New Zealand such
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  Speaker 4: as cg or the Cook Islands. Having said that, there
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  Speaker 4: will be a few hundred people though, who are interrupted
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  Speaker 4: and who are expecting to have a holiday in the
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  Speaker 4: sun through our winter but will no longer be able
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  Speaker 4: to make it.
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  Speaker 2: Are other airlines doing the same thing, Well, there's only.
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  Speaker 4: Here Calleen who get fat flies there as well, So
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  Speaker 4: we've got the situation where we've got a lack of
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  Speaker 4: capacity and so people are now going to have to
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  Speaker 4: think about are they going to get a refund, are
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  Speaker 4: they going to rebook to go somewhere else? And if
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  Speaker 4: they're rebooking to go somewhere else, places like Fiji and
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  Speaker 4: the cook Irons and I start filling up pretty quickly
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  Speaker 4: given the call with it we're now experiencing.
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  Speaker 3: Do you suspect that in New Zealand may in fact
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  Speaker 3: be quite happy to pause the flights because if there
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  Speaker 3: aren't that many travelers it might not be that lucrative.
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  Speaker 4: Well, that's up to the airline to decide what they do.
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  Speaker 4: But obviously in your zone, and it's not their fault,
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  Speaker 4: have got engine problems and so therefore they have got
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  Speaker 4: a limited capacity in terms of those aircraft. So it
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  Speaker 4: may be an opportunity for them to redeploy that aircraft
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  Speaker 4: in a better environment. But that's sorry that in your
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  Speaker 4: zones have to comment on, brit.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, getting your refund on the airline is one thing,
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  Speaker 3: and people will be stoked about that, but what about
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  Speaker 3: the hotels are they refunding?
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  Speaker 4: Well, that's the situation that we're going to have to
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  Speaker 4: deal with on a case by case basis as to
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  Speaker 4: what people want to do and what refunds they can get.
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  Speaker 4: So there's no one blanket for that and we'll just
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  Speaker 4: have to deal with them as they come through. It's
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  Speaker 4: obviously something that hasn't impecked because of the New Zealand
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  Speaker 4: decision and so people will be looking to work out
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  Speaker 4: what they can do and where can they go for
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  Speaker 4: their holidays.
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  Speaker 2: Brent, thank you very much, really appreciate your time. Mate.
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  Speaker 2: That's Brent Thomas, House of Travel, Chief Operating Officer.
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