Airlines in clash over ash
Flights to and from New Zealand cities continue to be disrupted today while plumes of Chilean volcano cloud hang over the South Island.
Qantas and Jetstar cancelled flights to Wellington and Queenstown, and were not expecting to fly to Christchurch until later in the day.
Air New Zealand, however, has continued its normal schedules.
The decision by Air New Zealand to keep flying around the ash cloud while Qantas and Jetstar cancelled their services in recent days has provoked an angry exchange between airlines bosses.
This week a New Zealand aviation analyst claimed it was cash, not ash that grounded Qantas and Jetstar planes.
Forsyth Barr aviation analyst Rob Mercer told Fairfax New Zealand he believed it was a financial decision.
He said most airlines were currently running at a loss due to high fuel prices and the global economic downturn.
Qantas, Jetstar and Air New Zealand were all affected but Air New Zealand’s domestic routes were highly profitable, Mercer said.
This explains why AirNZ kept flying, even though cruising at much lower altitudes to stay clear of the ash added 10 percent in fuel costs for its jets, he said.
“The decisions not to fly are easier if you are running at a loss, than they are if you are running at a profit,†Mercer said.
Jetstar and Qantas claim their decision not to fly was based entirely on safety. Jetstar group chief executive Bruce Buchanan said claims that Jetstar and parent company Qantas chose not to fly to protect earnings were “absurd”.
“The mere suggestion that grounding your entire operation in market – hundreds of flights over a two-week period – would improve financial performance is out of touch with the tough reality of running an airline,” Buchanan said in a statement.
“We have lost all the revenue associated with these flights, while we have still had the burden of a significant portion of our cost base.”
Earlier, Rob Fyfe, AirNZ chief executive, said Qantas was very happy to transfer thousands of its customers on to Air New Zealand and other airlines’ services, “which seems a strange thing to do for your customers if you have concerns about the safety of the airspace”.

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