Scott Carr: Air NZ Domestic Manager on the cuts to the domestic routes

Air New Zealand won't say if the latest cuts to its domestic routes will be the last. 

The airline's reducing flights between Christchurch and New Plymouth and running smaller planes between Christchurch and Queenstown, and Wellington and Dunedin. 

On Monday it also scrapped direct flights between Wellington and Invercargill from early next year. 

Domestic manager Scott Carr told Heather du Plessis-Allan they're strongly committed to their domestic fleet, but these are trying times.  

He says if that continues indefinitely there may be more changes, but if it bounces back they can get more planes in the air. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now only days after cutting the Envicargole to Wellington flight
in New Zealand has reduced capacity on four more routes.
One flight from Queenstown to christ Huge will move to
a smaller plane, Deneanan to Wellington will move to a
smaller plane. Christ Chuge New Plymouth will lose three flights
and blend them to Wellington will have a flight moved
later in the day. In New Zealand's domestic general manager
Scott Cars with us. Morning Scott, Good morning, hell, what

(00:22):
is going on with you guys?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, this is just normal practice for us and fairly
difficult circumstances, to be honest, I know we've got a
lot of care and planning into ensuring our domestic network
services our communities across the country effectively, and as a result,
we regularly review our schedule and make some adjustments here
in there to make sure it's for purpose. In this case,
you know, we've got a lot of cost increases and
demand softening missions with aircraft, and so we're having to

(00:47):
right size some markets to make sure we continue to
deliver a sustainable service to those communities.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Okay, mean, obviously some of this is about the routes
not making enough money. But has have the engine problems
got anything to do with it as well?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah? It does. I mean these engine problems cascade down
through our fleets. So if we have a problem with
our A three twenty narrow body fleet, sometimes we have
to use atrs to fly those services, and that means
we've got to find those aircraft from other parts. So
it is it's a problem that spreads across the entire
business that we're trying to resolve.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Here, you're doing this only next year, right, this is
stuff that kicks in in February, January, February or so on.
Does that mean can I read into that that you
were expecting next year to be even tougher.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, this is really about planning. It's about making sure
we get these things into market as soon as we can,
and also practically just sort of understanding we have people
booked on those services, so you know, changing people's travel
plans too early to be highly disruptive, and so you know,
these are good, good decisions that we have to make economically,
but we are delaying those changes until after the school

(01:51):
holiday break just to make sure that we actually aren't
disrupting too many people, and we get all our people
at pilot's crew, etcetera in the right places.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Is what's the end of it? Or is there more
to come?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Look, I wish I had a crystal ball that could
predict the future. Hither it is. You know, these are
trying times. Costs up, as I mentioned before, demands down
and you'll be well aware of things like government travels
down about thirty percent across our network. Pay If that
continues indefinitely, then we might have to make some more changes.
I don't know. But then again, if it bounces back,

(02:24):
hopefully we can get more aircraft in the year will
be You know, we've got a strong commitment to growing
our domestic business that has not changed in a long time.
We do understand that domestic flying, connecting New Zealanders to
each other and the world is part of who we
are as a brand, and we want to do that,
so we want to continue to grow. It's just we're
going through a bit of a lull here, as I say,
where costs and demand are not moving in the right

(02:46):
direction for us.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Scott, thanks very much, best of luck with everything at
Scott car In, New Zealand's General manager of domestic For
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