New Zealand’ Airport Association is criticising the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s new review of airport regulations—and is instead pointing the finger at Air New Zealand.
Speaking to Newstalk ZB, New Zealand Airports Association ceo Billie Moore said it’s clear there’s plenty of strain on the domestic aviation market, but blames this on NZ’s ‘monopoly’ over that market and, as such, is calling for the government to look into the local aviation market. “It’s in decline at this point, the health of the market is really, really poor,” she told ZB. “We’ve lost 1.5 million seats out of the system since 2019.” While Moore says aviation is going ‘gangbusters’ off-shore, she says New Zealand is not seeing that same growth, and attributes that to the effective domestic monopoly. “[NZ] have 80% of their routes as monopoly routes in the regions…we need more competition in that system,” she adds. If competition isn’t possible, which Moore says is NZ’s argument due to New Zealand’s population, then regulation needs to follow. “That’s what we do with most other virtual monopolies…there has to be some kind of action.” Touching on the newly-announced review in regulations, Moore says the association is feeling ‘disillusioned’. “It’s as short as 11 days since the last review…it feels like rolling reviews where airports come out really well, and yet we continue to see a blind spot when it comes to the monopoly that most consumers are experiencing in aviation which is NZ itself.”
