Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Was David Seymour right about Air New Zealand going 'woke'?

So David Seymour’s right about Air New Zealand - but he’s also wrong about Air New Zealand.

Before we get to why, let me bring you up to speed on what’s happened with the airline today, because the news is not good.

Air New Zealand has posted a half-year result showing a $59 million pre-tax loss, which is slightly worse than expected. And to be fair to Air New Zealand, a lot of this really isn’t their fault. 

They’ve had not one, but two engine types in their fleet causing them trouble. And the economic downturn we’re experiencing in New Zealand - the worst in most of our lifetimes, you have to go back more than 50 years to find anything as bad - directly affects their earnings. 

If we don’t have money, we’re certainly not spending money on flights.

But some of this is their fault. They’re squandering customer loyalty with poor on-time performance and a tired, diminished Koru Club offering.

And this is where David Seymour is right when he says, “Go woke, go broke.”

Because part of the reason Air New Zealand is losing customers to Jetstar is that there are people who no longer want to pay for Koru Club. The offering has slid from the good old days. You can’t even - and this bugs people more than the airline ever seemed to realise -  go into the lounge, ask for a coffee, and take it away like you can at a café.

There are no takeaway coffees because Air New Zealand doesn’t want paper cups going on planes. Paper cups are bad for the environment… when you’re flying planes.

They’ve wasted time and money trialling an electric aircraft they don’t actually know how to integrate into their fleet. And they’re constantly lecturing the government about sustainable aviation fuel - SAF - which is more expensive than standard jet fuel, and standard jet fuel is already extremely expensive right now.

But here’s where David Seymour is wrong - he says the solution is to sell down the Government’s 51 percent stake in Air New Zealand.

We can’t do that.

We are an isolated island nation. There are only two ways to get here - by boat or by plane, and we all know which one people actually use. 

We need to own those planes to make sure they keep flying. If we learned anything during COVID, it’s that Air New Zealand effectively became a logistics lifeline and repatriation service for the entire country.

So yes, David Seymour is part right and part wrong. We do need Air New Zealand to stop the distractions and start doing its job properly. And we do need it to remain in New Zealand hands.

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