Regulation needed for regional New Zealand flights

Regulation needed for regional New Zealand flights
By admin


The New Zealand Airports Association has called for regulation on New Zealand's regional fares, where the national carrier Air New Zealand has an effective monopoly.

Airports Association chief executive Kevin Ward said "there are big question marks around Air New Zealand's monopoly domestic routes where there is potential for excessive profits, and no transparency or monitoring."

Air New Zealand recently announced a 45% uplift in annual profit to $NZ262 million ($A243.91 million) for a third consecutive year of earnings growth.

Airports Association is calling on the Commerce Commission to be directed by the government to include monopoly regional airlines in an information disclosure regime to assure New Zealanders that Air New Zealand's prices are fair.

Meanwhile Jetstar has lost ground in New Zealand, with 20.7% of New Zealand's domestic market at June 30, down from 22.4 per cent a year earlier.

Passenger numbers dropped 7.7% to 1.72 million and revenue passenger kilometres fell 6.2% to 1.13 million. Capacity shrank 4.5 per cent to 1.42m available seat kilometres.

Qantas didn't break out any financial figures for the domestic New Zealand service.

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