I’ve been putting off writing this column for a couple of years. I don’t like the idea of knocking a national icon. You don’t mess around with national icons. But at the same time, it’s getting hard to remain silent.
It all started a couple of years ago, in Rotorua. It was 4pm. I had been stuck in a boardroom in our former tourism capital for most of the day. I was then planning to travel to Christchurch for a business meeting over dinner. I had an all-day meeting there the following day. My travel plans required that I fly from Rotorua to Auckland before connecting with a flight to Christchurch.
But my flight out of Rotorua was delayed, then delayed again, and finally cancelled. We’ve all heard the reasons. Engineering issues. Staff shortages. Weather. The reason given on this occasion was the weather, and yet, the skies were clear in both Rotorua and Auckland at the time.
The good news was that there was a flight to Wellington with 22 empty seats. I looked online and saw that another flight from Wellington to Christchurch would get me to my destination within 30 minutes of my original plan.
So I had a chat to the wonderful woman on the Air NZ customer desk. She tried to be helpful but the reality was she couldn’t help much. In her words, despite her 14 years with the airline, and despite my fully flexible ticket, she didn’t have “the authority” to put me on another flight.
So, I watched the Wellington flight depart, with all its empty seats, and waited to hear what would happen. Some time later, I was advised that there would be a bus taking passengers to Auckland. That wasn’t going to be any good to me.
So I waited for another hour. As I waited, I plucked up the courage to write a very direct letter to the airline CEO. Eventually, I was told that I would be booked on a flight from Tauranga at 6am the following morning. An hour-long taxi ride would drive me to a destination of my choice in Tauranga. No accommodation assistance was available. The taxi took 45 minutes to arrive and I arrived in Tauranga just before 9pm, some two hours after the start of my meeting in Christchurch. Most of the restaurants were closed, but fortunately, I found a pizzeria that hadn’t quite shut up shop.
To his credit, the CEO replied to my letter that evening. That’s impressive. His commentary reflected the challenges. Engineering issues. Staff shortages. Weather. His problems, not mine, I thought. His response extended to every Air New Zealand staff member I met the following day. From the check-in at Tauranga, to the cabin crew to the ground staff in Christchurch, they told me he had received my letter. Everyone knew I was coming!
This week, some two years later, I sat in Air New Zealand’s regional lounge at Auckland Airport. At the entrance to the lounge there is a sign that says the following. “We are here to help you on your journey. When interacting with our staff please refrain from harassment, abusive language or behaviour”.
Just after I read the sign, I heard an announcement asking for all passengers on the delayed and subsequently cancelled flight to Tauranga to collect their baggage and report to the front of the terminal for their bus trip to their destination.
I can understand the need for the sign.
Engineering issues. Staff shortages. Weather.
During the two years that have passed between those two trips, I have flown multiple times. Almost every flight was late. Sometimes a little bit. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes, I arrived and my bags didn’t. On the odd occasion, my flight was cancelled.
And it’s not getting any better. A return trip to Wellington in October cost $966. I ran over an hour late both ways. The outbound trip to Wellington was one hour and 25 minutes late. The pilot flippantly apologised for being “a bit late”. My flight to Christchurch last week was 30 minutes late. The return leg at 11am on Saturday morning was cancelled, an occurrence that I learned about just 90 minutes before I was due to depart. After a 30-minute wait, I learned that I was rescheduled for 12.10pm. It eventually left at 12.50pm. My anticipated arrival at 12.30pm on a precious Saturday became 2.15pm.
Engineering issues. Staff shortages. Weather.
Here’s the thing. Flying domestically with Air New Zealand is not some low-budget experience. It’s expensive. Very expensive. I’ll often fly from Auckland to Queenstown or Christchurch for $1000 or more return. While writing this, the cheapest return trip to Tauranga for next week is $446. If there’s a risk of being put on a bus, I think I’d rather drive.
These prices compare with return flights to Sydney at similarly short booking intervals for $1027 return. Fiji, on the other hand, will cost just $826 return.
So, our domestic travel experience is very, very expensive. And the customer experience is currently, very, very poor.
Late last month, I heard the new CEO on Mike Hosking’s breakfast show. There is only one comment from his interview that I remember. He said that “the airline is in fantastic shape”. That surprised me. He needs to travel more.
I said at the start that I didn’t want to write this column. When you travel with Air New Zealand, you encounter – for the most part – good people who want to do better. They are pleasant and polite, are often apologetic, and they try hard to solve your travel problems. But they are incapacitated by a bureaucratic and clumsy organisation that gets in their way. Like the signpost in the lounge says, they don’t deserve the harassment or the abuse. It’s not their fault.
But they need to be empowered. They need to have the authority to solve your problems at the gate. To put you on another flight. To go out the back and get the bag that your i-tags have located when they can’t. To replace a broken suitcase.
What’s the cost of a taxi from Rotorua to Tauranga versus the cost of putting a passenger on another flight travelling in the right direction with empty seats? The woman who tried to help me in Rotorua was a senior and capable person. But she had to have a supervisor from another city approve a change. Why wouldn’t we let such people, those at the coalface interacting with customers, solve the customer’s problems?
This week, the airline announced a revision to its frequent flyer programme. With the greatest of respect, there are more important things to focus on. They’ve also got 1200 people who’ve voted to take strike action. That’s not going to help us or them.
Like most Kiwis, I want Air New Zealand to be outrageously successful. To be honest, I don’t really need the diversity policies shoved in my face to the extent that they are, and I’m a bit over the safety videos that aren’t entertaining any more. But I’ll live with that if the service becomes more reliable and the customer experience is what I expect and what their own frontline people deserve to deliver.
A mate of mine has moved camp. He told me he’s now flying Jetstar domestically. He said that the Aussie-owned airline gets a bad rap, but the flights are mostly on time and the cost is less than half. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But it’s his perception. And when it comes to customer experiences, perception is everything.
But I don’t want to be that guy. I want to fly the national airline and be proud to do so. I flew with Emirates lately and felt bad about it. But four flights in five days, to the other side of the world and back, ran like clockwork to the minute. And it was cheaper and faster than the like-for-like alternative with the home team.
Air New Zealand was once a great airline. It was revered internationally. But Covid-19 hurt it. However, as with other issues in this little country, it’s time to stop blaming Covid. It’s time to get back to what we are traditionally good at. No excuses. No Engineering issues, staff shortages, weather.
What we need is a leadership team that will do anything to recover the customer experience. After all, whatever is going on in the background is not our problem. We’re paying top dollar for a seat. Please do everything you can to deliver us to where we want to go.
Because, Air New Zealand is one of our icons. It’s like the All Blacks and Fisher & Paykel. It’s Lisa Carrington and Lemon & Paeroa. Fonterra. We don’t like it when they muck up and we want them to be better.
They’ll never totally lose our support. But boy, they make it tough sometimes!