Whanganui not featured in test of Air NZ and Air Chathams interline agreement

Associate Transport Minister James Meager, Whakatāne mayor-elect Nándor Tánczos, Air NZ chief transformation and alliances officer Mike Williams and Air Chathams chief executive Duane Emery at the interline deal signing at Whakatāne Airport. Photo / Annaleise Shortland

An interline agreement between Air Chathams and Air NZ will begin in December, but Whanganui is not featured.

Flights between Whakatāne and Auckland are the first to feature the arrangement, which allows passengers to book Air Chathams connecting flights through Air NZ.

The agreement creates one itinerary and removes the need to recheck luggage.

Air Chathams chief executive Duane Emeny said he hoped its Whanganui route would be added and he was pushing hard to get the Whakatāne trial operating by early December.

“Fingers crossed we can, because if it goes past the middle of December, [Air NZ] enter what they call a brown-out period, where they don’t release any new digital development,” he said.

“Then, we can test the trial through the Christmas-New Year period, and when people get back from the beach, we can look at what we can do with the rest of the network.

“It would be nice if all those decisions were mine but such is the way of a partnership.”

Earlier this year, Whanganui Mayor Andrew Tripe and Whanganui MP Carl Bates wrote letters to then-Air NZ chief executive Greg Foran about the agreement.

Tripe told the Chronicle this week he understood the Whakatāne route was easier to test it on - “starting there is logical”.

“It shows we are on track,” he said.

“What I’m particularly interested in is an interline agreement not just for domestic routes, but also for international, especially Australia.

“I’m concerned it’s a wet bus ticket if it’s only for New Zealand.”

In May, the Whanganui District Council and Air Chathams signed a memorandum of understanding to work on a business case for the airline relocating its main facility from Auckland to Whanganui.

“We had two of the council team come up about a week ago and they sat with us for three hours,” Emeny said.

“They got shown our whole Auckland facility and we said whatever was created in Whanganui needed to replicate a big part of it.

“I think that was really useful for them, to get an understanding of scale and what needs to be built.”

Emeny said Air Chathams was still working on an application to the Government for a share of $30 million in concessionary loans.

The loans were announced by Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Associate Transport Minister James Meager on September 1.

“There is a lot of effort going into [the application], to tell a story about why Air Chathams is important to New Zealand Inc and how diverse we are,” he said.

“We want to recapitalise the business so we can stick around, first and foremost, and see what we can grow.”

He said a potential Whanganui to Christchurch route was “still very much on the table”.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.