Two top car rental franchises have abandoned Whanganui due to the city losing its ties with Air New Zealand.
Air Chathams general manager Duane Emeny said he received an email from the Avis head office last week stating that both Avis and Budget had closed in Whanganui.
"It's not a good thing - we want people to have a range of options and not having a leading car rental service, like Avis and Budget, takes away customer choice which means people may opt to fly to Palmerston North instead," he said.
Mr Emeny said Air Chathams had started working with Avis and Budget and had altered their website with an online portal to the car rentals' website.
"Interestingly, when we started a flight route from Auckland to Whakatane, Avis and Budget decided to pull out,