Latest / Best of Business / Cath O'Brien: Board of Airline Representatives NZ executive director on the bid to get 24/7 coverage at Ohakea Airbase

Transcript

Cath O'Brien: Board of Airline Representatives NZ executive director on the bid to get 24/7 coverage at Ohakea Airbase · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Right, we have a problem in New Zealand. We don't
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: have a twenty four to seven backup airport anywhere in
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: the country. Currently, long haul airliners flying into Auckland, for example,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: they've got to carry an extra six tons of fuel.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: This is in case they need to divert at the
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: last minute somewhere else. Now a Haakia usually stands in
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: as the backup, but since the pandemic, the Air Force
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Basis Control toy I hasn't been staffed overnight. Kath O'Brien
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: is the Barnes executive director and joins me this evening.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Get Akath, good evening. Ryan is six Just to start
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: with six tons?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Is that?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Heaps?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: How much do the big jets usually carry on with them?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the important thing to think about is that, yes,
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: it's six ton, but if you're carrying six ton of
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: jet fuel, that means you cannot carry the equivalent weight
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: of passengers or cargo. So not only are you having
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: to carry the extra way to the of the jet fuel,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: but you're actually losing out on carrying more passengers to
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: New Zealand, and some aircraft are having to fly in
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: limited in the seats they can sell, so they actually
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: can't sell the whole plane because they have to carry
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: that extra fuel.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Does it how much does it extra? Does it cost them?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: And do you run into this problem? And is presumably
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: not in Australia they have somewhere else to go.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, it costs the jet fuel. I think publicly available
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: information it's probably somewhere maybe six kind of jetso you
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: might get some change out of ten thousand New Zealand dollars,
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: but of course the airlines all hitch it out over time.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: But it's a daily cost if you're flying to New
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Zealand daily, and bearing in mind you're probably paying something
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: like forty five thousand dollars to actually just land your
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: plane in New Zealand between airport charges and customs and buyosecurity,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: and then you've got another ten for your extra jet fuel.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: And that's before you pay your staff or buy your
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: ordinary fuel, or buy your food, or pay for your
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: waste or anything else. And the thing is, it really
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: starts to make it a hard business to do when
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: all those set.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Up one so what's the solution.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Look, for a long time now, we've been talking about
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: making a Hakia available, So you know, for those who
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: don't know, a Haki is not far from Palmerston North.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: It's a wonderful military base that serves New Zealand's defense needs.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: It's also able to act as an ultimate which means
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: that airlines that are flying to New Zealand can can
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: plan to fly to a Hakia instead of Auckland or
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: christ Church, which is essentially a shorter distance to fly
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: to a Hakia, saving the jet fuel. And if they're
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: available around the clock, they can receive you know, five
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: or six large planes in an emergency if we really
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: did lose capability at ukwandor christ Church. So it's a
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: very you know, operationally important airport. But since the pandemic,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: it hasn't been available at nighttime. Why not, Look primarily
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: because we had a bit of a challenge with firefighters,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: which the Defense Force has resolved, and now we continue
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: to have a challenge with air traffic controllers. And you know,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: it is a big effort to train specialized staff like
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: that and have them based you know, not far from Bulls.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: But it's a really critical think it actually wouldn't really
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: cost that much money to kind of thinx and it's
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: probably the biggest bang for buck that we could do
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: for New Zealand aviation and tourism because with that staffing,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: airlines could come to New Zealand anytime, they could plan
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: to come at any hour of the night. But at
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: the moment, long haul aviation is limited to plan for
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: New Zealand between you know, essentially first thing in the
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: morning and later into the evening, and then that's it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Would it genuinely well, I mean obviously there are those benefits.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Would it bring down the cost of a ticket.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Well, certainly, it saves obviously that cost of the additional fuel,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: and then it allows you to sell or tickets in
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: more cargo, more customer tickets and more cargo, so it
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: spreads the cost over the whole aircraft. So it is beneficial.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: But I think what it also does is will promote
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: competition because more airlines will be able to plan journeys
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: here when we've got more operational capability like that.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: We haven't talked about fanoa Paie. Is that not suitable?
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Too small?
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Look, it's essentially not for lots of reasons, not least
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: because of the housing that's really close round it, and
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: also because o'haka is beautifully placed right sort of almost
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: smack in the middle between Auckland and christ Church, which
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: are New Zealand's sort of significant jet ports excluding Queenstown.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: Then you know, it's a lovely middle point. So so
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: physically it's in the right place. In fact, you know,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: ever since the New Zealand Civil Aviation system was designed
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: way back in you know, nineteen forty, o Hakia was
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: noted to be the most sensible ulphaate, so it's always been.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: It's just that we haven't been able to resell it
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: in recent years.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: How come what's the problem with just going to christ Church?
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Like if you can't get to talk and go to
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: christ Church vice versa.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Well, certainly lots of airlines do that now, so if
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: you can't have access to a hockere, you'll go to
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: christ Church. The trick about christ Church is that sometimes
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: it's fobby and that that happens quite regularly through the year,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: and sometimes christ Church will do really important runway maintenance,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: so they will close their runway in a planned way,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: and so at those times airlines can't plan for christ Church,
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: and over the last couple of years, we have had
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: multiple and multiple and multiple examples of very large, well
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: known international airlines sitting up in their home countries with
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: a full plane waiting to take off to New Zealand
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: and being unable to depart because New Zealand is effectively
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: not open.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: God, that's embarrassing.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah it is, Yeah it is. And it's a problem
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: that we could really easily fix for not particularly much money,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: and I just don't understand why we can't.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Keith O'Brien appreciate your time, Border Airline Representatives, New Zealand
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Executive Director.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talk sed B, listen live on
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio