Is anyone seriously surprised at
the axing of Air New Zealand flights out of Masterton? I will readily admit I'm
as guilty as charged for not using the service. I've had two trips to Auckland
on the company dime since starting this job in April and, on both occasions, I
flew out of Wellington, along with my boss. I remember thinking at the time it
would be a good idea not to mention that to Destination Wairarapa, because it
wasn't a very supportive move from the daily paper. But damn it, I'm answerable
to bean counters and the cost of flying out of Masterton was prohibitive.
Seriously, I couldn't even contemplate it. When the Air New Zealand executives
were in my office yesterday afternoon, I asked them why they were closing the
route. They said this route (and others) were "challenging", and the
challenges weren't getting any smaller. Wanganui is facing a similar chop. The
deputy editor at the Wanganui Chronicle hadn't been read in as early as I had
and there were some pretty explosive swear words at the other end when I let
them know. I asked the execs if this meant Kapiti's bit of pride, Kapiti
Airport in Paraparaumu, was also in trouble. Not at all, they said. In fact,
they were about to start a Christchurch service, in addition to their Auckland
flights. One of the execs waved his arm to the west. "Look at Kapiti, the
population catchment." He wasn't exactly right, with Kapiti's 50,000
people as opposed to 44,000 over here. But Kapiti is growing, it will soon have
an expressway, and Air New Zealand has put on a lot more flights a day than we
did. We might argue that 70 per cent seat capacity wasn't too bad for our
flights. But I think it's a case of Air New Zealand deciding something had to
go in these "challenging" times, and Wairarapa and Wanganui got the
bullet for the sake of the account books. MP John Hays and Garry Daniell are
now looking at other options, but not many spring to mind for me.
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