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Air New Zealand plans to classify the flights as “red” or “green” to eliminate the risk of transit passengers infecting others with Covid-19 when a trans-Tasman bubble opens.
In an interview with RNZ On Thursday morning, Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Greg Foran said he expected a quarantine-free trans-Tasmanian bubble to open in the first quarter of 2021, as indicated by the Government. That’s despite doubts about the opening date, following a recent Covid-19 outbreak on Sydney’s north beaches.
The airline was “trying” that the bubble would open in February, but appreciated that the date would likely change depending on conditions at the time, it told Kathryn Ryan in Nine at noon.
“We will adjust accordingly as things become clearer,” Foran said.
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He expected a New Zealand-Cook Islands bubble to open in the first quarter as well, as indicated by the Government.
The airline had been working with authorities, airports and border control to figure out logistics, such as how to manage customers transiting Australia from other countries, he said.
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Air New Zealand expects to operate at up to 90 percent of pre-Covid levels on some routes when a trans-Tasman bubble opens.
Customers traveling between New Zealand and Australia or New Zealand and Rarotonga were generally going to be Covid-19 free, he said.
“We call those flights green,” Foran said.
“When we have flights in which we have passengers in transit, they will be red flights.”
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Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran says the airline expects the trans-Tasman bubble to open outside of the school holidays.
He was also working on how those flights would be staffed and making sure the crew were comfortable with the arrangements in place, he said.
“That is a lot of work.
“For this to work well, you need to create bubbles.”
Foran said the airline had the information it needed from the government to start operating when a bubble opened.
He said the airline was planning for the bubble to open outside of school holidays, which meant that acceptance from people who wanted to travel would be lower.
However, to begin with, it was still preparing to operate 80 to 90 percent of pre-Covid-19 capacity, he said.
“It varies depending on each particular route.”
He said the airline staff was waiting for the bubbles to open.
Before the pandemic, Air New Zealand’s Tasman and Pacific routes accounted for about a third of its $ 6 billion annual revenue, it said.
Last week, the national airline recalled 175 cabin crew members who had been on Covid-related leave, as it prepares for non-quarantine travel bubbles.
Foran also addressed issues related to an exodus of senior management personnel since his arrival.
As part of cost reduction measures, Foran reduced the size of his executive team from nine to six.
After that, there were two more senior executives resignations, with Chief Commercial Officer Cam Wallace leaving and later taking over as CEO of MediaWorks, and CFO and former Acting CEO Jeff McDowall announced that It would leave in early 2021 after a planned capital increase had been completed.
Foran said that when a new CEO joined a company, there was always some “turnover” in his leadership team.
“It could be that people had aspirations for the job I got,” Foran said.
“They may not agree with the strategy we are implementing.”
Air New Zealand had a “tremendous amount of talent” to replace senior managers who had left, he said.
