AIR - Air NZ.

[Joshuatree]

This will be a great little earner for AIR
Inmarsat and Panasonic partner on in-flight connectivity
Inmarsat and Panasonic partner on in-flight broadband

[Beagle]

Kia ora Beagle
As New Zealand’s national airline, I’m very conscious that we occupy a special place in the hearts of Kiwis. It’s an affection and responsibility that generations of Air New Zealand staff feel and has driven them to deliver a truly world class travel experience.
Frustratingly, our ability to deliver this over the past year has been severely impacted and many of our customers have experienced disruptions and delays, rescheduled flights, unexpected replacement aircraft and over-crowded lounges. I really do apologise and thank you for your patience and support of the airline at this time.
Consequently, I thought it might help if I shared some context with you as to what’s going on and more importantly what we are doing about it.
What's been going on?
It’s been an incredibly challenging year at Air New Zealand dealing with some extraordinary operational challenges that started with the rupture of the fuel pipeline north of Auckland and a series of extreme weather events. However, the biggest challenge has been the unscheduled global maintenance issues with the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines that power our 787 Dreamliners. Some of these engines have experienced durability issues which have increased the number and frequency of engineering checks required. This has meant that at any time up to five of our 13 787 Dreamliners must be grounded while the engines are serviced in Singapore.
This has placed significant pressure on our whole interconnected network of over 3,500 weekly flights and I will be meeting with Rolls Royce management in London in a few weeks to further seek personal reassurance that all is being done to get our affected engines back in service as soon as possible.
While I’m immensely proud of the agility and resilience of all Air New Zealanders in responding to these recent challenges, we now need to implement more assertive actions so that we can more reliably deliver our schedule for our customers.
What are we doing about it?
To cope with our reduced fleet, we have had to lease three other aircraft from two of the world’s top airlines. These are flown by Air New Zealand crew and have been equipped with our food and beverages, but do come with a different interior configuration to our own fleet.
We will also further protect ourselves from unexpected disruptions by stopping flying to Vietnam next year, suspending our services to Haneda in Tokyo and slightly reducing our frequency to Argentina and Taipei. These are big decisions to make but are vital to free up capacity and let us concentrate on delivering a better experience across the board.
Another issue that has disrupted our operations has been the significant increase in people passing through airports in New Zealand. Simply put, some airport facilities, especially in Auckland, are struggling to keep up with the surge in demand for air travel due to under investment by the airport companies. Currently, I am working with the Chief Executive Officers of several airports to do whatever we can to accelerate improvements.
A strong theme of feedback from customers has been frustration about call wait times into the Contact Centre, especially during periods of weather disruptions. So, we’re in the process of hiring a further 80 Contact Centre employees and have committed to expanding the self-service options and digital tools over the next six months.
In closing, thank you for your loyalty, patience and support as we are working through these recent operational challenges. While these are not in our direct control, how we choose to respond certainly is.
Going forward, I want you to know that I am committed to keeping you informed each month and sharing the way that Air New Zealand will grow and adapt to continue delivering a truly world class travel experience.

Ngā mihi

Christopher Luxon
Chief Executive Officer

__________________________________________________ ___________________________
Just received e.mail to airpoints members. Looks like Chris is a little frustrated with Rolls Royce's handling of this whole issue. What do RR expect when they tell their customers everything will be fixed by April 2018 and then opps NO, it'll take another whole year !
I hope he takes a really firm approach with RR and insists on full compensation including the estimated losses of $30-40m noted in their forecast for FY19.
I might e.mail him next week if I can be bothered working myself up into a lather over this, (I currently don't own that many shares), and encourage him to really take RR to task over all the costs this is imposing on AIR as well as reputational damage.

[winner69]

Lot of effort goes into those safety videos

http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=112511

[Joshuatree]

Nothing about not wearing ski boots onto the plane or attempting to ram skis in the overhead locker?

[RGR367]

Kia ora Beagle
As New Zealand’s national airline, .....................................
...................Going forward, I want you to know that I am committed to keeping you informed each month and sharing the way that Air New Zealand will grow and adapt to continue delivering a truly world class travel experience.

Ngā mihi

Christopher Luxon
Chief Executive Officer

__________________________________________________ ___________________________
Just received e.mail to airpoints members. Looks like Chris is a little frustrated with Rolls Royce's handling of this whole issue. What do RR expect when they tell their customers everything will be fixed by April 2018 and then opps NO, it'll take another whole year !
I hope he takes a really firm approach with RR and insists on full compensation including the estimated losses of $30-40m noted in their forecast for FY19.
I might e.mail him next week if I can be bothered working myself up into a lather over this, (I currently don't own that many shares), and encourage him to really take RR to task over all the costs this is imposing on AIR as well as reputational damage.

Thank you for sharing your correspondence Beagle.

[Raz]

Thank you for sharing your correspondence Beagle.

When I saw this in my inbox it just reminded me why I try to not use them currently if I have a good alternative, the Auckland and lounge issues pre-date RR engine issues...

Note the cut back on growth routes regardless of lease aircraft...

[mikeybycrikey]

Kia ora Beagle

(...snip...)

Ngā mihi

Christopher Luxon
Chief Executive Officer

Thanks for sharing that. Interesting read.

I'm a little concerned that of the three problems that he is writing about, two of them (lounges and call centre staff) can be squarely placed on Air NZ's shoulders... yet he is deflecting blame on weather and airports. I'm sure if they wanted to build a bigger lounge, Auckland airport would happily take their money.

Even the RR issue has been ongoing for a while.... why are they only making an effort to cut scheduled flights now? It feels like maybe discontent has been building for a while to write this grovelling email message.

Taking action is good but it doesn't feel nearly as proactive as I'd expect from this airline.

[winner69]

Thanks for sharing that. Interesting read.

I'm a little concerned that of the three problems that he is writing about, two of them (lounges and call centre staff) can be squarely placed on Air NZ's shoulders... yet he is deflecting blame on weather and airports. I'm sure if they wanted to build a bigger lounge, Auckland airport would happily take their money.

Even the RR issue has been ongoing for a while.... why are they only making an effort to cut scheduled flights now? It feels like maybe discontent has been building for a while to write this grovelling email message.

Taking action is good but it doesn't feel nearly as proactive as I'd expect from this airline.

Nice word that “grovelling”

I note Chris cashed up some of his shares the other day

[couta1]

Nice word that “grovelling”

I note Chris cashed up some of his shares the other day

I don't mind him cashing up some shares, he's done wonders for the company over a long period of time and has my respect, contrast that to another CEO with a name the sounds like Herd Licker and you get a totally different story.

[Snow Leopard]

To be honest I have always been a little baffled by the apparently short-term solutions Luxon Air adopted to the 787 issue, initially I assumed that they had some form of preferential treatment.

Virgin Atlantic, for instance, took the approach of grabbing a few available airplanes and make them as VA as possible: see VIRGIN ATLANTIC TACKLES THE 787 ENGINE ISSUE.

However there are potential pitfalls when painting a plane:

Cathay Pacific spells own name wrong on plane