Nikki Dines: Air New Zealand Chief People Officer on the planned cabin crew strike to take place in February

Air New Zealand says it hopes to avoid a three-day strike by international cabin crew in February.

E tū Union and the Flight Attendants Association have issued strike notices for wide-body crews on 787 and 777 Boeing flights.

The airline's Chief People Officer, Nikki Dines, says they've covered a lot of ground in 10 months of weekly meetings with the unions.

"There's a lot of things that we've agreed on, the last remaining item is just on pay. That's the one item that we are continuing to work with our cabin crew unions on."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Now, do you remember the strike by Air New Zealand
cabin crew that was all set to ruin Christmas until
it was called off? The strike is back. A union
representing Cabin Cruise's international Cabin Cruise will strike on flights
internationally obviously between eleven and thirteen February. Nicky Dines is
Air New Zealand's chief people officer and with US now
Hi Niki, Hi, Henna. Do you know yet which flights

(00:38):
are going to be affected to which destinations?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yes, so our team was working through that at this stage.
We're obviously hoping to avoid the strike by continuing discussions,
but it will be impacts to the flights across each
of those three days.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Okay, in what proportion of flights? Is it a huge
number or a small number.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
If the strike does proceed as planned, it would be
all of the flights impacted on those days, but we're
obviously work to find options for customers either side of
those days.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Now, the unions is part of the reason that the
cabin crew are striking is because they are constantly dealing
with customers complaining about things that in New Zealand could
actually fix, things like canceled flight seats that don't work,
lack of catering. Are they wrong?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Our calculation rates have actually are back to pre COVID levels.
What we see, it's hard for us to do much
about weather, so we've been focusing on recovering really quickly
and well in those events of those cancelations. In terms
of things on board the aircraft, there are times when
we do have issues on our aircraft, but that's really
the exception, not the norm, and that's born out really

(01:46):
in our customer stifaction rates, which are about over ninety percent.
We're halfway through refreshing all of our cabins on our
wide body fleets, so you do have a few teething issues,
but those are getting worked through very quickly and resolved.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Right, So what's going to fix it, Nikki? Do you
reckon just paying them more?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Well? The gap between us we've been here for ten
months and we've been engaging every week and we've got
through a huge amount and there's a lot of things
that we've agreed on. The last remaining item is just
on pay, So that's the one item that we are
continuing to work with our keepin Crewe unions on.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
All right, good luck with it, Niki. Thanks very much,
Nicky dines in New Zealand, Chief People Officer.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
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