Hi Poet. I think there's two factors at play there. 1. 2010 was a low point for the airline coping with the fallout from the GFC and the effects of six billion dollars, (that's not a typo) of money that was wiped out by the collapse of dozens of finance companies in N.Z. Remembering that the majority of bookings are from Kiwi's you simply cannot lose that vast amount of money from people's personal wealth and while the memory is fresh without it having quite an effect on how people chose to spend their remaining disposable income. In short, people spend a lot less on travel when they feel poor.
2. The stock is presently under priced because it seems many (despite being in a period of pretty challenging economic times both nationally and internationally), think we're at the peak of the earnings cycle. My contention is that if oil was somewhat higher (say $70), and there was far more national and international economic growth I think AIR would actually do better than in this cheap oil low growth era where yields are compromised. Regarding the whole cyclical thing, a short while back I expressed my thoughts that I believed it was strange that the consensus analyst forecast for FY18 earnings was 32 cps given that analysts didn't see the same level of cyclicality with QAN earnings. I see analysts are starting to see my point of view and consensus eps for that year is now over 40.8 cps a pretty remarkable 28% increase.
http://www.4-traders.com/AIR-NEW-ZEA...07/financials/
A couple of other interesting facts came out of that databook. Have a look at the projected average aircraft age over the next few years and check out the number of full time employees which was at its lowest point in 2015 despite the growth. New efficiencies and strong RPK growth are also part and parcel of why future earnings will be supercharged and in my view lower oil is less of an influence than people are realising due to its effects on yields.