WellingtonFlyer

After reading the posts above and NZ's handling of NZ9 recently I have decided to share my opinion as it has been on my mind lately, like many others on this thread.

I have flown with Air New Zealand as an Elite for over 4 years now and have been flying for many more as Koru member before this as only in the last few years has my travel substantially increased. Over the past few years and more recently the nearly one year I have been involved in FlyerTalk I have experienced huge changes within Air NZ.

Im very proud of New Zealand's national carrier and whenever I see their aircraft with the iconic Koru design on the tale I feel very exited and proud. I really enjoy travel and I do my best to stay loyal to NZ when I fly around the world.

However, recently I, and many others, have noticed big changes within the company and the way it operates. As sbiddle mentioned above the way Air NZ perceives itself and the opinion customers have of the airline are currently very different. The great Kiwi service and can do attitude of staff has seriously degraded in recent times and new changes to the Airpoints programs and other cost cutting measures may make shareholders happy, but it is doing the opposite to its most frequent customers.

I personally believe the current benefits both Gold and Elite travellers receive are disgraceful and have really degraded in recent times. The airlines innovative approach to different problems and ways of keeping customers happy has come to a complete halt. I used to love arriving at the airport knowing I was flying NZ and would recommend them to anyone who needed to travel somewhere, I enjoyed reading positive reviews about the airline and enjoyed helping other travellers make their journeys on NZ more enjoyable with advice and help. But more recently I have been asking myself why I stay loyal to NZ and have not been as motivated to stay enveloped with the airline.

I believe the negative changes with the airline have been very influenced by the change of leadership at the start of last year. The new CEO comes from years of running a packaged goods business and doesn't have experience in service organisations let alone aviation. His instincts are to do everything possible to improve the effectiveness and profitability of the supply chain. He is to focused on profits and isn't balancing profitability with the service he provides to customers, especially the ones that are most loyal. Rob Fyfe was great at unleashing the staff to do what they needed to make the customer experience fantastic and was innovative and kept the airline and its customers very close together and managed to really make a positive change to the airline. I have noticed that not all, but a lot of the significant changes to the airline and the degrading quality of the airline staff and the way they treat customers only began to happen after Christopher Luxon took over. Whenever changes are announced publicly he seems to treat them as great successes for the airline and that it is what customers want when really it isn't and it is yet another set back for the airline. More and more travellers are cottoning on and are not happy with they way the airline is being run.

I want to see NZ succeed but the current changes and the direction the airline is heading in slightly scares me and I'm not sure how long I and others can stay loyal to the airline. The successes of the airline now, may be short lived. Im seriously considering switching carriers and I hope that Air New Zealand realises what it is doing is having a detrimental effect on its customers before its to late!

pbl22

IMO the rot started to set in under Fyfe's leadership. I wrote him an email a couple of years ago (posted on FT somewhere) telling him his legacy would be of an airline and FFP in serious decline. Under Fyfe, the airline tried to be innovative and gimmicky, but not a lot of it benefited the customer. Nothing rewarded the frequent flyers' loyalty. Luxon has simply continued this.

mad_atta

I agree with almost all the sentiments on this thread, and this post in particular. In my view, by far the most impressive CEO of late was Ralph Norris - he innovated where he needed to, he introduced much higher hard product quality and service levels, he wasn't afraid to do a quick about-turn when things went awry (remember the shortlived snack boxes for trans-Tasman business class?), and he did all this without endless hyperbolic marketing hype. To me, Fyfe was all about flash and gimmickry and PR. So far I think Luxon may actually be a little better, but whoever described the current approach as "profit at any price" really hit the nail on the head.

oranjemakker

The problem is, what are our options, really? A glaring area of lack of competition is the the ability to earn unlimited points for any other airline on a domestic credit card (not counting amex which is practically unusable), and especially status points. Add to this Air NZ's domestic quasi monopoly, what to do but stick with a seriously sub par loyalty programme?

I mean, really, the average passenger who maybe takes a couple of domestic flights a year and a saver across the Tasman, plus spends a few k on their credit card, might be lucky to get 30 or 40 airpoints dollars. Woohoo.

And all the hype around "airpoints dollars on every flight" etc. it all nonsense and a big con as they are so worthless.

WLGNZ

Which AirNZ is not being truthful about.
I have many flights that have earned 0 airpoints dollars. Even fully flexible fares that are described as "earning more airpoints dollars"!

Saxphile

Don't forget about NZ's very real monopoly on directly flights to the US, Canada, Japan, and all regional destinations in NZ.

pbl22

Agree about Norris. I was travelling on Weds with an infrequent flyer colleague who said to me how great Fyfe had been as CEO. I responded that Norris was a great CEO and Fyfe had simply benefitted from Norris' restructures, before starting to undo a lot of Norris' good work. Having said all that, I asked my marketing head last week to check the availability of Fyfe for a speaking engagement, as I know what a drawcard he can be (the great unwashed think he is a heroic airline CEO).

mad_atta

I may have been slightly harsh on Rob Fyfe in my post above. I do get the sense - admittedly from a great distance, and certainly without any special insight into AirNZ's internal politics or corporate culture - that Fyfe was good with people, and that he engendered quite a cult of personality. His handling of the Perpignan test flight crash clearly indicated the importance he attached to the human side of his role, so he deserves credit for that. I just feel that operationally and strategically he was not good for the airline.

sbiddle

Just look at how well Norris turned around CBA.

pbl22

Bang on. Fyfe was/is a great people person and a fantastic front man for the airline. His strategic direction was terrible.

waterwingsNZ

I have worked for the airline under Norris, Fyfe and Luxon. All have strengths and weaknesses. I think you are correct with much of what you say. Fyfe benefited greatly from much of the foundation work laid by Norris. He was and is very much a people person. He was good at perhaps nursing the airline along when it needed it but I'm not sure it was ever really going to grow much under him. Luxon is (in my personal opinion) a much more astute business man and really driven by dollars and cents. I do share a concern that this is perhaps being taken to the extreme and will have long term effects. I would love to see a balance struck (easier said than done I realise).

Kiwi Flyer

I flew something like 900,000 miles on NZ within the space of about 4 years, mostly in business class. The last few years I've hardly flown NZ longhaul and almost all of my NZ flights are when I have no real choice (eg domestic).

I am in the lucky position of having elite status on other airlines and alliances, and so do not miss out on status benefits. Indeed these are usually much better on other airlines than NZ's poor offerings.

While NZ has a quasi-monopoly on domestic, these are good routes to use up my dwindling airbucks balance. For CC earning, there are other options including cashback.

For longhaul, NZ is invariably 50+% more expensive on routes I fly so it is fairly easy to choose other airlines.

Kiwi Flyer

Hawaiian flies AKL-HNL route.

But yeah, the only routes NZ has real competition on are the domestic main trunk (with JQ hah!), trans-Tasman, HNL and London. Every other route is either a pure monopoly or the other airlines have some alliance/tie-up with NZ that reduces competition.

LyingFlat

There is also a lot of competition to mainland China with CZ. Also, not just London, but all of Europe too.

Recently was looking at AKL NZ PVG LX ZRH. NZ was circa 13K return J class and LX (on the exact same flights, just plated on LX paper) was 8.5K...

Beano

Yes AIRNZ are substantially higher than most airlines when paying cash but if however you can purchase a PE flight and purchase (or use a RU) using a standby upgrade (checking first for R class availability) the price can be competitive.