David Seymour: Deputy Prime Minister on new Air NZ CEO's request for financial assistance

New Air New Zealand CEO Nikhil Ravishankar has suggested a “situational subsidy” to support regional routes when the economy is not doing well and demand is low.

Ravishankar officially took over as CEO on 20 October 2025, replacing Greg Foran who stepped down after six years.

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour tells Heather du Plessis-Allan that the implementation of a subsidy could allow for too much Government control over the agency which would be a 'complete disaster'. 

Seymour also addresses the legalisation of melatonin for those aged under-55.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heather due to Cela so AMW Zealand's new Chief Executive,
Nicol Ravishank, is only five days into the job and
already he's asking for a handout for them from the
government for regional roots. Here he is on Radio New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
If I can share it as an opinion, I think
there is a need for certain routes to have some
form of a subsidy. I'm sort of starting to refer
to it as a sort of situational subsidy.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Now, the situational subsidy would only operate when demand is
low because the economy isn't doing so well. Deputy Prime
Minister and act Party leader David Seymore's with us, Hi, David, Hey,
heither you into this idea?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
No, you know, the government would have to consider this
very very carefully, as James Mega, the Associate Transport Minister,
is said, but it's one of those things that just
raises more questions than it answers. So when the economy
is not doing well, how well does there have to
be doing how much does the subsidy have to bring

(00:55):
the fares down? How frequent do the roots have to be?
All those questions end up being answered by politicians, and
then you don't have a chief executive running an airline anymore.
You have politicians running an airline because they're making the
pricing and scheduling decisions. And we've been down that track
in New Zealand was a complete disaster when it was

(01:17):
run by politicians. We don't want to go back to it.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
I suspect he's doing this because he knows he's going
to have to shut some routes down shortly, and he
would rather that you copped the blame for saying no
to the subsidy, then he copped the blame for shutting
down the roots.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
What do you think, Well, you could speculate that I
was talking to his predecessor a while back. I said, mate,
I got to thank you. He said why, and I said, well,
the thing is I would have missed three flights last
week if only they are on time. But actually I
was absolutely fine. And my advice would be, look, you know,

(01:50):
start taking off and landing at the time that you advertise.
Work on all your basics of running a business rather
than getting into politics, because I don't think politicians trying
to run business is a very good idea. You look
at most of these politicians never made a dollar of
their own money and their life, why on earth would

(02:11):
you give them yours to invest? And I also don't
like the idea of business people trying to be politicians,
because often they do it for the private interest of
their company rather than the wider public interest.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Listen, what's this business with malatonin? I've been told that
malatonin has been only been allowed for over fifty five
year olds until recently.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, that's right. We legalized it, which was the right
thing to do. It's one of those little changes you
can make that makes us a little bit more enjoyable
for no cost. And yet if Medsafe initially said, look,
you know this is only valid if you're over fifty five,
I said, that's just completely ridiculous. Medsafe themselves have told

(02:53):
us that the danger and side effects of malatonin are
comparable to panadole, which you can give to very small
children and buy it a supermarket. So, you know, we said,
go back and sharpen your pencils. I didn't actually realize
that they had already made the change. I knew they
were about to. If they have, and it's being sold
and anyone over eighteen can get malotonin for jet lag

(03:14):
and insomnia. Then happy Days, Happy Labor weekend for all
those who celebrate.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Finally we can, we can get our hands on it. David,
Thanks very much, David, seeing more deeply Prime ministers and
that nuts. You can get a politician to change, you
can vote the politician and get them to do what
they say they're going to do, and there'll be some
bureaucrat in Wellington who just stuffs around with it. Eight
And in this case it's mead safe over fifty five's
for God's sake. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,

(03:40):
listen live to news Talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio