The Guvnor asks which is correct?
The answer - both are. The first quote was correct when we all went to bed last night down here. The second was correct when we all woke up.
What will be correct in an hour's time is another question.
That's the way it is in Australasian aviation at the moment. As for the paying public - buying a ticket to travel has much the same emotional feel about it as buying a lottery ticket. Speaking as someone who is travelling Wellington-Sydney-Albury, tomrrow, returning Friday. and then Wellington-Sydney-Singapore-London next week I feel a sense of adventure and risk I haven't had in years.
Yes, both governments have stuffed it up. But when did they do it first? When they deregulated/privatised in the first place? When they signed an open skies agreement and then one country immediately reneged on it? Or now?
Then there are directors and managers, past and present, AN and NZ. not to mention some pretty badly behaved major shareholders.......
As someone in Dununda pointed out, just like most accidents this wasn't the result of one stuff up, but a slow accretion of stuff ups by a lot of people over time.