Business as usual
Interesting and a little bit of recent history. Air NZ had announced, with some fanfare, a reasonable profit and then shortly after that announced that they were cutting services to the reigions. They said it was because the routes were unprofitable.
Fair enough, but as an entire group our "national airline" had made a profit and the regions of NZ also had a reasonable service, albeit a monopoly one. So much for being the National airline.
So the regions, those who had also helped bail our Air NZ when they went down the gurgler over the Ansett saga, got screwed. But hey thats business...
Looks like the Aussies with deep pockets have spotted an opportunity and are going to enter the NZ regional market. That's business and may the best airline win.
Lots of good things happening here, jobs for some Kiwi boys, jobs for some expat kiwi boys and a fair deal for Joe blogs kiwi traveller.
Also it appears that a few Aussie chests are puffed out at the opportunity to come and show some grass skirt wearers how to fly Dash 8's in their own country. Bearing in mind that the Dash 8 has been in NZ almost continuously since the mid 80's, this will serve to enlight our Australian friends, that OCTA is really class G airspace, Aotearoa is actually quite descriptive, there is icing and that the hills around Cairns and Hobart are just that, Hills.
Good for everyone.