Kate Boyer: Air NZ Ground and In-Flight Chief Operations Officer on rebuilding trust, the increasing number of flights arriving on time

Air New Zealand says it's working hard to rebuild trust in the regions. 

The airline says 86% of flights arrived within 15 minutes of schedule last month, up from just over 78% a year ago. 

Analytics company OAG rated the airline at just over 84% for June, including cancellations.  

Ground and In-Flight Chief Operations Officer Kate Boyer told Mike Hosking customers don't care about statistics, they want their flights on time.  

She says one bad flight can wipe out six or seven good ones, so they're committed to proving themselves to customers.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Airline news in New Zealand's on time performance. So what
have we got? Eighty six percent last month? Analysts OAG
they rate the airline at eighty four point four two
percent for June. I don't know whether that's good or not.
Seems all right to me. Kate Boyer is the in
New Zealand Chief Operations Officer for Ground and in Flight
and is with us. Very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Are those numbers any good?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, we're pretty happy with those numbers. We've seen real
improvement over the last couple of months. Eighty nine percent
in May, eighty six percent in June as we head
into winter. That's putting us right in the sort of
top tier of network airlines in terms of performance, and
that's where we want to be for our customers.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Okay, I should clear up first of all, what's your
job for ground and in flight? What part do you
cover and not cover?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah? I look after all the day to day operations
of the airline, So our op center, our cabin crew,
our airports, all the stuff to sort of fly day
to day.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Okay, So of the statistics, how much of its domestic
versus international?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, our domestic performance is stronger and particularly regional. We
are eighty nine percent on the regions, and we've had
huge focus on that because we lost customer trust there.
We were struggling to deliver reliability and performance into the
regions and we put huge effort into that and turning
that around international. We still have some work to do.
We're seventy eight percent just above and we need to

(01:15):
continue to invest in that space, particularly on the Tasman.
We're a regular business travelers.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
How much of it's on any given month in those stats,
how much of it's you versus stuff beyond you?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Oh, you know, we are really focused on the stuff
that we control, but we do see weather impacts. I'll
give you an example. We had one hundred and seventy
six weather related cancels over forty eight hours in Wellington
and New Plymouth the other day with those windstorms. That
takes out the network, to lose a hub airport, but
to deliver that result eighty six percent with the start

(01:49):
of winter. We're pretty happy with you all.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
I was going to say, so you don't smooth out
those stats with the it was eighty four, but take
out the weather because we couldn't control it. That's with everything.
That's the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
That's absolutely everything.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Okay, why were you having trouble domestically and why didn't
you fix it sooner?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, you know, we were coming out of COVID, we
were rebuilding the airline, We were rebuilding a lot of
experience in our teams. We had engine issues, so we
had aircraft out, which meant we were trying to fly
our existing aircraft really hard, and all of that scrunched
up the schedule. We had equipment we needed to buy,
and then we've done a lot of work to modernize
our tooling, our procedures. We rolled out a new app

(02:29):
that allows everyone to collaborate on the turn So all
of the sort of dozens of people who work on
turning an aircraft around, they're now using this app to
communicate with each other and coordinate through that post.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
So you could argue you should have done that years ago,
because and that wasn't invented last week, was it? And
it's not your fault. I'm not blaming. I'm just saying
that these are the sort of things because so whatever
happens every time we talk about it in New Zealand,
I'm going to get nine thousand texts from people who
were going from Towerong to one ruin. They've paid eight
thousand dollars to get there and the plane never took off.
Is that broadly in your view? Fixed?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
My view is customers don't really care about the stats.
They care about if their plane goes on time, and
so our job is to do that day in and
day out, and we can talk about the stats, but
what we have to do is prove it through actions
and keep going so we rebuild that customer trust because
one bad flight can wipe out six or seven once.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
How much of the stat is being enhanced by the
fact you're flying less because of your cutbacks.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, the consolidations from the Middle East have created a
little bit of slack in the system. That's good, but
it's not eight points worth of good. So we know
that we've made structural improvements that we're seeing roll through
the system, and we want to keep that muscle getting
built really strong, so as we regrow the schedule, we
can continue to deliver it.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Okay, what about the domestic answer to that question then,
because you cut back there as.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, Yeah, it's same thing. We've got a little bit
of slack in the regions. Right now, a few extra
spare aircraft. One example, you know, after that storm, we
were able to put on ten additional recovery flights, so
use those aircraft from the consolation.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
So and that's why I asked what your job is
at the start of this. Where are you at aircraft wise?
Do you have everything back yet or not?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, we just took our last wide body out of
Alice Springs and that was a pretty good feeling make.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
To see you've literally got all your planes back.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Now we've got them all back. Well, we might still see,
you know, one or two go out, but we are
back with our fleet flying, and that is an incredible
feeling after the last few years and.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
How many of them are out. So that's domestic and internationally,
you've got all you need.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
We've got all of our planes back from the engine issues.
And then we continue to look at our orders and
we've got deliveries coming in over the next year from the.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay, because the update that Nickel gave the other day,
and I don't know if this is in your wheelhouse,
but they were talking about Ford orders and planes and
all that sort of stuff. You're not ordering until next year,
next financial year. You need to start buying some stuff fast.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
So we've got a big order book forward order book
over the coming years. What Nickel shared is that part
of the new strategy is smoothing how we take delivery
of those aircraft so they're not alloy to ensure that
we keep our balanced sheet strong as we sort of
build through and smooth the cash out the door. We
want to make sure that we're growing sensibly and that

(05:11):
we're maintaining a really resilient balance sheet.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Right, so the word is growing. You are growing because
of course we're all deeply concerned about the state of
the play at the moment, and you're down the hold
to three or four hundred million dollars worth, when do
you get back once again, tell me if this is
out of your wheelhouse, when do you think you get
back to some sort of profitability? Like, I mean, I'm
looking internationally and aviation's booming and we're not.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, we are really focused on turning around the financial
performance of the airline. So you know, we're still watching
what's happening in the Middle East and we're still seeing
some impacts over there. But we've built this plan and
launched the strategy to get ourselves back to a point
where we can deliver a really strong financial performance.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
All right, well, I wish you the best with it.
That's nice to see you. Thank you, Okay boy who
works with the New Zealand Chief Operations Officer for ground
and in flight. For more from the Microsking Breakfast, listen
live to news Talks at B from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.