Believe it or not, but the following model was moulded by Cathay in the "goodold days".
Geoffrey Thomas | August 17, 2007
THE New Zealand born-again award-winning airline is rewriting the airline staff management relations book with executives rolling up sleeves and working side by side with staff getting a dose of the "right stuff".
Every month, chief executive Rob Fyfe - and the rest of the airline's executives - don flight attendant uniforms and serve coffee or a fine New Zealand sauvignon blanc or might spend a day on the check-in counters or loading baggage.
And while they are doing that, they are reinforcing Charles Darwin's great quote that "it's not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent but the ones most responsive to change", for they are completely changing the way management deals with airline staff.
Air New Zealand has travelled an extraordinary journey since the bleak days of 2001 and it has all been built on interaction with staff, initially under former chief executive and current Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ralph Norris and now under Fyfe.
The result? Air NZ is now the most admired brand in New Zealand. According to recent survey by Britain-based TNS Global Research, the percentage of customers who would recommend the airline has grown from a paltry 44 per cent across the international network in 2004 to 90 per cent for the first time ever in November last year. "Our people are our brand" is the way Fyfe describes it. Every month or so, Fyfe hosts a staff barbecue for charity on the veranda outside the open-plan executive offices.
When Norris took the reins in early 2002, Air NZ had just written off $NZ1.45 billion - the largest write-off in New Zealand corporate history - after the collapse of its Ansett subsidiary.
A TRULY REMARKABLE STORY