Some excellent posts and knowledgeable comment in this thread, clearly something that affects and interests many in this business.
Clearly there are 2 issues yet to become clear, how/who will recapitalise NZ/AN, what will the subsequent operating plan be? Political comment seems to indicate that government input may be from a facilitation rather from a direct finance perspective, money has to come from somewhere to restructure, re-financing of the fleet possibly? Buy out from another carrier/consortium? Political handout? No-one is going to buy a sinking ship for big money, maybe for a bargain with a view to either refloating or using for scrap.
What then for the future, AN are a high cost operation largely working in a low yeild market, their main competition has the ability to offset domestic operating costs within the group as a result of the much larger international operation - that won't change.
VB already have a low cost competitive structure as do SJ. As many have eluded to in this thread - ongoing costs will have to be rationaised [for that read cut] on both sides of the Tasman, realistically that means reducing the variable costs as much as possible [staff, salaries, rents, etc] and restructure the high costs where possible [aircraft refinancing, fuel purchase, etc].
Anything that happens to AN will ultimately affect the direction of the aviation business in Australia, the carrier I work for has a number of passengers that interline on to AN from the international ports, what affect any AN change will make is unknown but could decrease the business coming in to Australia. Who knows?
We live in interesting times, as I have friends in both NZ and AN my good wishes are with them, we can only hope that a mutually beneficial solution is finalised. Soon.