The proposed use of volunteers added extra tension as bosses and staff at a key regional airline met yesterday to try to resolve a bitter industrial dispute.

Air Nelson, which connects regions to main centres, has been racked by industrial action after rejecting a staff pay claim.

Unionised staff are seeking a two-year contract with increases of 5.8 per cent and 4.8 per cent, which includes catch-up payments to compensate for earlier settlements....

A gaggle of geese has halted an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to San Francisco.

A Boeing 777 plane, carrying about 260 passengers, was forced to turn back after striking geese shortly after take off....

Air New Zealand is expected to benefit from a drive by French aircraft maker ATR to sell more of its regional planes in the South Pacific.

The national carrier already flies 11 66-seat ATR 72-500 turboprop planes on regional and some main trunk services.

In September ATR plans to build in Christchurch a $5.3 million pilot training simulator that is expected to significantly reduce training costs, and attract pilots from Australia and the Pacific Islands.

In January ATR opened a parts distribution centre in Auckland run by logistics firm DHL.

ATR regional sales manager Laurent Negre said New Zealand was a convenient place from which to service the growing customer base in the South Pacific.

ATR has just sold its first two planes in Australia....

Hundreds of people on scheduled flights from Queenstown were stranded yesterday after heavy snow forced the alpine resort's airport to close, cancelling all flights.

Only two flights made it out of the airport and one Qantas plane made it in before 11am.

Four flights were diverted to Invercargill.

But by about 3pm all other flights to Queenstown were cancelled. The bad weather upset about 1500 domestic and international passengers....

Designer of Air New Zealand's Christchurch international lounge David Scott has woven together strands of kiwiana into a relaxing business space that avoids the hard lines of a corporate space.

Scott's "bach" theme launched in Melbourne has been replicated in Christchurch � where it incorporates bits and pieces from South Island river stones to No. 8 wire as design elements.

With costs of about $2m for the Melbourne lounge, $1.75m for the Christchurch lounge � the upmarket strategy for Air New Zealand's Koru, gold and gold elite guests could be called pricey....

The Government, already sitting on a book profit of about $1.4 billion from its investment in Air New Zealand, could pocket more than $1 billion in airline dividends during the next three years, according to broker Forsyth Barr.

Rob Mercer, Forsyth Barr's head of research, estimates the reinvigorated national carrier could pay about $1.32 a share, or 44 cents per annum, in dividends during the next three years without increasing debt.

The Government, which owns 76.7 per cent of Air New Zealand, would see its coffers swell by about $1.06 billion if Mr Mercer's scenario panned out.

"It's a pretty powerful position," Mr Mercer said yesterday. "There's a sweet spot in (airline) earnings globally and these guys have got very little demand on actually investing that back in their fleet."...

Airlines claim Wellington Airport should be cutting landing charges, not increasing them and are calling for an inquiry by monopoly watchdog the Commerce Commission.

Yesterday Wellington Airport announced plans to increase landing charges by up to 2.85 per cent a year for the next five years, adding 15 per cent to charges by the end of the period.

Stewart Milne, executive director of the Board of Airline Representatives (Barnz), said figures showed the airport was already "over-recovering through its existing charges". Barnz represents Air New Zealand, Qantas, Jetconnect and Pacific Blue....

An Air New Zealand international flight has been forced to turn back to Auckland because of an engine problem.

Flight NZ8 was heading to San Francisco but turned back after about five hours and landed in Auckland early this morning.

An Air New Zealand spokesperson says a vibration was detected in one of the engines.

For the second time in a week an Air New Zealand Boeing 777 bound for San Francisco has been forced to turn back.

In the latest incident, about 300 passengers had to delay their travel plans on Sunday when their flight was forced back after a "slight vibration" in the plane's engine....

...Tiger chief executive Tony Davis mentioned the word New Zealand last Friday, raising concerns Air New Zealand's recent honeymoon could be over.

Air NZ has carefully pared back excess capacity in recent months across the Tasman and merged its A320 operations with that of its low-cost subsidiary, Freedom Air.

It appears Air NZ and Qantas are for the first time in years even realising good profits on the trans-Tasman route. One hint of this could be that they have not whinged about Emirates operating on the route for a few months.

But all of that could be scuttled if Tiger not only enters the trans-Tasman market but establishes a domestic service in New Zealand, something Virgin Blue has been hinting it could do for years...

The Kiwijet Airline Company Limited has received confirmation from Qantas Airways Limited that our proposal to acquire the Jetconnect operation in New Zealand has been turned down.

We received this news directly from Mr. Peter Gregg, Chief Financial Officer of Qantas Limited on Friday June 15, 2007 at 17:00 eastern Australian time. We have also voiced our concerns to Mr. Gregg and Mr. Dixon, Chief Executive Officer of Qantas that a non corporate officer made comments to the media that Jetconnect was not for sale. We believe that Mr. John Borghetti was not authorized to make such a statement and that Kiwijet to his knowledge had not made a proposal to the Qantas board this is just not true. In fact Mr. Dixon had our proposal on May 28, 2007 and it was taken under serious consideration over a three week period.

We would hope that comments of this kind will be dealt with appropriately by the officers of Qantas, as not to have loose cannons making statements regarding its business dealings with other entities in the future.

All this aside Kiwijet will move forward with our plan B. This revised plan to is operate a fleet of 12, 50 passenger ERJ Embraer 145 Regional Jets with the assistance of a US airline currently operating these aircraft. The following markets of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Invercargill, Rotorua, Nelson, Hamilton, Palmerston North and Tauranga will be served initially. We will focus on providing an all domestic jet operation that will be structured to provide feeder traffic to airlines that do not have ties or code shares with the national carrier as well as linking these cities with all jet service for the first time being competitive with the turboprops that currently serve these cities.

Our plan will keep fares simple and basically the same as our previous proposal with the exception that the single fares will be based on �peak� and �off peak� times meaning that �peak� fares will be on flights operating Monday thru Friday from 0700 to 1800 and �off peak� before 0700 and after 1800 Monday thru Friday as well as weekends and bank holidays.
We will still offer a �show and go� standby fare and accommodate 30 kilos of free baggage and free beverages as well.

The timeline for the launch has now been pushed back to the spring of 2008. We have many obstacles to climb over in the meantime and by introducing the Embraer 145�s we will be required by the NZCAA to place these aircraft into New Zealand for the first time which requires three additional months of approvals to place these aircraft on the civil registrar.

As far as our financing, we have retained all of the commitments that were secured in the initial acquisition proposal with an additional forty five million US dollars to finance the company brining the total to sixty five million US dollars.

On September 3, 2007 we will conduct a series of media events in Auckland and Christchurch that will detail the overall scope of Kiwijet including its officers and key personnel.

Many questions have surfaced regarding the ownership of Kiwijet. These questions will be answered as a matter of public record when we submit our application and manuals to the NZCAA for licensing of the carrier.

We look forward to serving the people of New Zealand and its many international visitors by late next year and we thank you for your ongoing support. Tell your MP�s that airline competition is necessary for New Zealand�s future.

Our website will be available from September please check back at www.kiwijet.net
For additional information please contact us via email at [email protected]

For additional information on Radixx International Systems please visit www.radixx.com
For additional information on Optymise Internet marketing please visit www.optymise.co.nz

Air New Zealand's plan to spend $50 million putting personalised inflight entertainment systems in all its A320 and 767 planes is a sign the once-troubled Tasman route is now profitable, analysts say.

The airline said yesterday it would upgrade the entertainment systems in 13 A320 and five Boeing 767 aircraft.

That means all passengers on the Tasman and Pacific Island flights will now have back-of-seat systems.

...

Qantas has sold its entire 4.2 per cent stake in Air New Zealand overnight.

Air New Zealand said today that Qantas had advised it after the close of the market yesterday that it was disposing of the shareholding.

"Air New Zealand has been advised that the placement was successfully concluded with all of Qantas' shares globally sold to institutional investors with particular support in New Zealand and Australia."

...

Air New Zealand will begin codeshare flights with Air China from July 1.

The deal will see Air China codeshare on Air New Zealand's services between Shanghai and Auckland and some trans-Tasman services.

In return, Air NZ will code-share on Air China's international services between China and Australia.

...