Air NZ 'no cleanout lackey'

By DANIEL RIORDAN

Air New Zealand executive chairman Sir Selwyn Cushing says the management cleanout at Ansett Australia was done without input from the airline's 25 per cent shareholder Singapore Airlines.

Sir Selwyn, chief architect of the integration, announced the changes on Thursday from Ansett head office in Melbourne, naming only three Ansett executives in the 17-strong team that will report to the as-yet unnamed chief executive.

He told the Business Herald yesterday that although he had kept Singapore bosses informed of the management review, they had no input into the changes.

Singapore took three Air NZ board seats just before the changes were announced, after the New Zealand Government gave final approval for the airline to lift its stake.

There has been speculation the changes were made to pre-empt Singapore Airlines' input into them once it had board representation.

But Sir Selwyn said the timing of the events was entirely coincidental.

"We had to make the business efficient and had to get the rationalisation programme under way as soon as possible."

Singapore deputy chairman and chief executive Dr Cheong Choong Kong (one of the new Air NZ directors) was in Melbourne for the announcement and his presence went some way to reassuring Australian analysts and media who value Singapore's involvement in the combined group more highly than Air NZ's control.

But Sir Selwyn rejected suggestions made in the Australian media that Singapore Airlines was involved in the process.

"It would be wrong for Australians to believe Dr Cheong's directors were involved in the announcement. They were aware of it but didn't have input."

He had no comment on suggestions that Singapore was unhappy with aspects of the restructuring.

More redundancies are expected as lower-level management absorb the change at the top, but analysts believe many of those will be through attrition rather than forced redundancy.

Peter Sigley of JB Were in Auckland said the market expected Air NZ to release details of the extra $256 million in annual earnings (before interest and tax) it hoped to realise from the integration over the next three years when it announced its annual profit at the end of the month.

Sir Selwyn said a short list of candidates for the chief executive's job had been drawn up, with a final decision expected within a few weeks.

He declined to say who was on the list, or comment on suggestions that Tony Tyler, Cathay Pacific Airway's director for corporate planning, was a leading candidate.