Editorial: A second airline is a great idea

Every second Friday at about 8.10pm, you'll find me sitting at Hawke's Bay Airport. You see, once a fortnight I catch the 8.05pm flight back to my family in Auckland.

The reason I am normally still sitting at the airport when my plane should have left is that it usually hasn't. I have never caught a Friday 8.05pm flight that left on time. This last Friday was actually better than normal - we were on board the plane at about 8.11pm.

I have heard all the reasons for these delays - weather disruptions and the slightly scary one of engineering delays.

The frustrating thing is that often the delays do not directly relate to my plane or the weather conditions at the airport I am sitting in. It often turns out that it is a problem at some other airport or with some other Air NZ (or Air Nelson on behalf of Air NZ) plane which has had an impact on my flight.

Another observation from my frequent flights to and from Auckland is that the planes are always full. Sure, there may be the odd empty seat scattered around the plane, but generally the flights are at capacity. A quick glance around the plane will also reveal that there is quite a cross-section of society taking these fights.

There are businessmen, students, grannies and grandpas off to visit their grandchildren and or in my case a father just wanting to spend some precious moments with his daughters.

Booking as many flights as I have recently, I know that flights between the two cities can cost anything from $89 one way to more than $300 for a single ticket.

The trick is to get in early and get the cheap tickets. But if you leave it too long, the prices go up and can be quite a substantial amount of money. The amazing thing is that people seem prepared to pay it or is it quite simply that they don't have a choice.

Air New Zealand has the monopoly on this route and many others around the country.

So, basically Air NZ can charge what it likes and if people don't like it, they can drive.

The issue came up on Friday at the hearings into the long-term plan of the Hastings District Council. Mr Mike Purchas, who returned to Hawke's Bay to live about six years ago to run his international IT businesses from the region, was appealing to the Council to get the airport to open the way for another airline to operate a service. The Hastings council is a shareholder in the airport company along with Napier City Council and the Crown.

Mr Purchas said it was cheaper to pay for office space in Auckland for sales staff rather than base them in Hawke's Bay and face expensive airfares to move them around.

"Hawke's Bay residents pay almost double the average fare between Auckland and Wellington," he said.

"Fares are unlikely to reduce until there is competition to Air New Zealand ... it could emerge as a consequence of a carrier flying a transtasman triangle."

I am glad Mr Purchas raised this issue and hopefully councillors would have listened to what he said. Competition for Air NZ would be healthy and would revitalise our region. It would allow our residents to travel more - thanks to more flights than the current six or so a day now and cheaper prices. A transtasman service, as Mr Purchas was suggesting and as Rotorua has, would do so much for our region's tourism. I think it is about time the shareholders in Hawke's Bay Airport acted with boldness and allowed another airline to operate in our region.