KEY POINTS:
The temptation for any airline executive getting a public roasting for flight delays is to keep the head down and hope the bad press will go away.
It's not a tack Pacific Blue's Adrian Hamilton-Manns is taking.
Instead he's getting in behind the push to have airline punctuality
made a legal requirement.
The airline says it has written to the Government calling for the establishment of a reporting standard for airlines to state how often they are on time and the frequency of delays.
Around Christmas Pacific Blue came under fire from passengers who faced delays - in some cases stretching overnight - following a tough month in November when the on-time performance for Pacific Blue and its Australian parent Virgin Blue was at 78 per cent. It was the worst it had been in three years.
Hamilton-Manns, the airline's commercial general manager, says the push for warts and all reporting was not a stunt.
"We're absolutely committed to this. Virgin Blue started this in Australia as a way of making all airlines reveal this for the benefit of the travelling public."
He points out the airline's on-time performance has recovered to 89 per cent, although the next figure will be affected by the fact the plane pictured with him for this story was 20 minutes late arriving from Christchurch.
In Australia reporting is mandatory and results are published by the transport department. A spokesman for Transport Minister Annette King said a compulsory regime had not been considered here. Qantas and Air New Zealand say they would be supportive of publicly sharing on-time performance if agreement can be reached with the industry on reporting standards.
Hamilton-Manns, 37, studied aviation and then started his career with the New Zealand airline in 1998 on check-in counters before joining its revenue management division.
Pacific Blue, on a corporate level, is not above a little trash talk about the dominant incumbent but on a personal level Hamilton-Manns is respectful.
"Air New Zealand is a good competitor. Back then it was in a bullish mode - it was very good the team I was with was very dynamic."
He spent two years with Air New Zealand before taking a job as head of sales performance for Qatar Airways in 2001, when the airline was going through an expansion, buying 75 planes.
"This involved a lot of heavy duty analysis," he said.
The self-described aviation nomad then worked for the British arm of a specialised aviation consultancy which advised on network planning and scheduling. "A lot of airlines miss that and they suffer core profitability because they're not flying where they should be as often as they should be."
Hamilton-Manns in 2003-04 worked for South African Airways where he rose to be executive vice president (commercial) before leaving abruptly as part of a management cull by a new chief executive.
At the end of 2005 Hamilton-Manns joined the start-up team for an Indian low cost operator Indigo Airlines, which has its main base in Delhi.
Indigo offered low fares, cellphone ticketing and was the second airline in India with web check in, he said.
In March last year he brought his low cost carrier expertise to Pacific Blue in New Zealand.
In an operation codenamed "Project Salmon" - in honour of the fish restaurant the plan took shape in - Pacific Blue was able to surprise the market with the November launch date of its Auckland-Wellington-Christchurch route.
Since its November 12 launch, Pacific Blue has carried 220,000 passengers, hurting the national carrier.
On the tarmac Hamilton-Manns frequently takes a peek at what the opposition is up to, but the official front is one of nonchalance.
"Air New Zealand and Qantas are pursuing their own paths, they're looking towards their own markets - we don't really care what they do."
