Speaker 1: Yota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special of
Speaker 2: The Front Page, The Enzid Herald's daily news podcast. While
Speaker 2: the Front Page is on summer break, we're taking a
Speaker 2: look back at some of the biggest news stories and
Speaker 2: top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: New episodes will.
Speaker 3: Return on January thirteenth. Traveling is often a stressful experience,
Speaker 3: particularly over the Christmas break and summer holidays, when it
Speaker 3: seems we're all rushing to get away. Those trips aren't
Speaker 3: made easy when violent turbulence or technical errors have an impact.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty four, stories of extreme turbulence popped up
Speaker 3: around the world, including one case in April when a
Speaker 3: man on board an Air New Zealand flow from Balley
Speaker 3: broke his leg, while in May, a violent Singapore Airlines
Speaker 3: flight saw dozens hospitalized and one passenger die. That's all
Speaker 3: on top of multiple stories locally of domestic and international
Speaker 3: flights impacted by landing and technical issues. To get insight
Speaker 3: on this, in July, we spoke to the chief executive
Speaker 3: of Massy University's School of Aviation, a shock Potoval, about
Speaker 3: whether we should be concerned and stay tuned for advice
Speaker 3: on what you can do if things go wrong for
Speaker 3: you this summer from Consumer and.
Speaker 1: Z's Jessica Walker.
Speaker 3: Just to start with a shock, I understand you've got
Speaker 3: over twelve thousand hours of airlines jet flying experience.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yes, that would be correct, So.
Speaker 1: You know what you're talking about when it comes to planes.
Speaker 4: I would like to think so.
Speaker 1: So a shock.
Speaker 3: When we talk about turbulence, what do we referring to exactly?
Speaker 4: Well, turbulence has simply put the movement of air created
Speaker 4: by atmospheric pressure. You know things called jet streams flow
Speaker 4: around mountains, thunderstorms, et cetera. To give you an analogy,
Speaker 4: it's like a car is traveling at six hundred kilometers
Speaker 4: per hour. If it hits a bumpy stretch of road,
Speaker 4: you'll be jolted in the air. It's basically horizontal or
Speaker 4: vertical changes in wind speed, which is called wind shear,
Speaker 4: that happens when the aircraft is traveling through the air,
Speaker 4: and that causes the turbulence.
Speaker 3: Why do you think extreme turbulence is becoming more of
Speaker 3: an issue now? I've seen some suggestions that climate change
Speaker 3: is to blame.
Speaker 4: Well, all I can said, the stage is that is
Speaker 4: a theory that is being put forward, and the number
Speaker 4: of incidents of turbulence in recent times have been more
Speaker 4: in quick succession. Put it that way. Whether this is
Speaker 4: going to be an ongoing trend or not remains to
Speaker 4: be seen. But there is a study that you or
Speaker 4: may may or may not seen by the University of
Speaker 4: Reading where they have talked about the link between climate
Speaker 4: change and turbulence and they're forecasting that turbulence incidents are
Speaker 4: going to increase in future. They've done a study from
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy nine onwards, I believe, and they're forecasting that
Speaker 4: the increase due to basically a climate change is what
Speaker 4: they're saying, there would be more incidents of turbulence. But
Speaker 4: at the moment, I would say this could be a
Speaker 4: cluster because you have things like cluster of events happening
Speaker 4: random events, and that then creates a perception that there
Speaker 4: is an increase in that particular type of event.
Speaker 3: There's also been dozens of stories in recent weeks involving
Speaker 3: planes departing New Zealand and then actually having to turn
Speaker 3: around mid flight due to technical issues. What goes into
Speaker 3: that decision making to turn a flight around.
Speaker 4: Well, that entirely depends on the nature of the issue Chelsea,
Speaker 4: because if it is an issue that would impact the
Speaker 4: progress of the flight ongoing and it's not safe, then
Speaker 4: the pilots would take a decision to come back. And
Speaker 4: a lot of these decisions are also taken in conjunction
Speaker 4: with the ground because most airlines have something called an
Speaker 4: integrated Operations Control Center, and so they're constantly in touch
Speaker 4: with the aircraft, so the nature of the problem is
Speaker 4: communicated there, and then the pilots can make a decision
Speaker 4: either to carry on or to divert to an alternate
Speaker 4: air field, or to turn around and come back. So
Speaker 4: it just depends on the circumstances.
Speaker 3: And I suppose we can have solace in the fact
Speaker 3: that if a flight does have to turn around, it
Speaker 3: really does, doesn't I saw it just yesterday an Auckland
Speaker 3: to China flight had to turn back after seven hours
Speaker 3: of flying. Could you imagine being up in the air
Speaker 3: for fourteen hours and ending up in the same place
Speaker 3: where you left off from. But I can imagine that
Speaker 3: there would have been some serious conversations and it would
Speaker 3: have actually had to seriously turn back.
Speaker 4: Hey, absolutely correct, that kind of a decision is not
Speaker 4: made by one individual. They said, communicate the information that's
Speaker 4: available the OPS control center, which has engineers, which has
Speaker 4: operations people, you know, the whole range of the commercial
Speaker 4: staff there, and then they make a considered decision. Something
Speaker 4: like this are not made likely. Just now passengers are
Speaker 4: not going to be very happy with that.
Speaker 5: The Virgin Australia flight from Queenstown to Melbourne has been
Speaker 5: diverted to in Vericago.
Speaker 6: We have just received this video of the plane with
Speaker 6: flames being seen coming from one of the engines.
Speaker 5: It started out as a seemingly normal landing in christ Church,
Speaker 5: but soon flight JQ two to five from Auckland slid
Speaker 5: off the runway.
Speaker 3: We've seen two problem flights at Invercargo Airport, of all places,
Speaker 3: in the past month. One Melbourne bound flight from Queenstown
Speaker 3: had to make an emergency landing after the engines seemed
Speaker 3: to catch fire, while a domestic flight had to circle
Speaker 3: the surrounding area for two hours after landing gear issues.
Speaker 3: In your experience as a pilot, how common technical issues
Speaker 3: like this.
Speaker 4: I have a background of mathematics, you know, the probability
Speaker 4: of something happening is mathematically extremely low. There are about
Speaker 4: roughly between ninety nine thousand to one hundred thousand flights
Speaker 4: globally every day. With that volume of flights, if you
Speaker 4: have a few odd incidents happening, I don't know if
Speaker 4: they happen every day, percentage or probability of the currents
Speaker 4: of such events is extremely rare. Now, the one about
Speaker 4: the engine fire. You talked about. Engine fires are very rare,
Speaker 4: so our aircraft fires, catastrophic failures are extremely rare. Just
Speaker 4: a little bit of information for you if you're interested
Speaker 4: that for an aircraft to be certified, the risk of
Speaker 4: any catastrophic component failure, the components that are critical and
Speaker 4: that would cause a catastrophic failure, the risk of that
Speaker 4: has to be lower than one to ten to the
Speaker 4: power of nine, one upon ten to the power of nine,
Speaker 4: or ten to the power of minus nine. It has
Speaker 4: to be lower than that. So basically what you're saying is,
Speaker 4: if you've or ten dice and the chances of all
Speaker 4: of them coming up with the same number, the probable
Speaker 4: of a catastrophic failure has to be less than that.
Speaker 3: Does the public have a right to panic in these situations?
Speaker 1: And what would your advice be.
Speaker 4: Okay, so let's look at what can be done about it.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I always advocate is keeping
Speaker 4: the seat bills on at all times when seated, even
Speaker 4: if you're sleeping. Keep the seat bilts on, perhaps loosely,
Speaker 4: but keep it on. And you may see that most
Speaker 4: salelines have an announcement saying it's recommended that seat bills
Speaker 4: should be kept on. I'm not sure if any measures
Speaker 4: are going to be taken now, with increasing number of
Speaker 4: turbulence incident possibilities, whether they will mandate that, because for
Speaker 4: takeoff and landing it's mandated you have to have your
Speaker 4: seat bilts on in the air during crews. Whether you
Speaker 4: have to keep it on or not as a mandatory requirement,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure, but there is conversations happening around that.
Speaker 4: But keeping it on at all times except maybe you're
Speaker 4: taking a stretching your legs or going to the toilet
Speaker 4: is most important. That's one that's really the key thing
Speaker 4: that a passenger can do when on flight to remain safe.
Speaker 4: It's no different from bearing a seat bill when you're
Speaker 4: in the car driving.
Speaker 3: Earlier this year we saw several incidents involving Boeing planes
Speaker 3: are you concerned at all by what you're saying in
Speaker 3: regards to Boeing.
Speaker 4: Boeing has unfortunately had some issues around quality assurance, and
Speaker 4: there's investigations going on in America. Federal Avition Administration has
Speaker 4: started investigations. The Boeing chief executive has had to face
Speaker 4: a Senate hearing a while ago about these issues. There
Speaker 4: are thousands, hundreds of thousands of Boeing aircraft flying across
Speaker 4: the world. So I don't see any immediate serious issue because,
Speaker 4: once again the aviation industry, the moment anything is identified
Speaker 4: that could be a significant risk, they've ground the entire fleet,
Speaker 4: like you might have heard about the Boeing Max issues,
Speaker 4: which happened when two AMX aircraft crashed some some years ago,
Speaker 4: and then they grounded the whole Max fleet for about
Speaker 4: two years before they could get it back up into
Speaker 4: the air. So the safety structure scaffolding around airline operations
Speaker 4: or aircraft operations is quite robust.
Speaker 3: When we talk about quality assurance issues within Boeing and
Speaker 3: that's being investigated. Is that like taking your analogy with
Speaker 3: the dice. Have they not rolled that dice ten times?
Speaker 4: I suppose not exactly, just that there were some vessel
Speaker 4: blowers who talked about them taking some shortcuts, you know,
Speaker 4: where the commercial imperative overcomes the safety impertative, so to
Speaker 4: Pase speak. So I'm not quite sure. I can't speak
Speaker 4: for what kind of shortcuts, if any, because I can
Speaker 4: only read what's in the news, because they talk about
Speaker 4: going having cut some corners when they were manufacturing aircraft.
Speaker 4: So that's really the issue. But I wouldn't say that
Speaker 4: it's anything around when I talked about rolling the dice,
Speaker 4: because those are what you call critical components which would
Speaker 4: cause an aircraft to crash if they were not quality
Speaker 4: issued appropertly.
Speaker 3: In terms of these events, how much of it is
Speaker 3: technological challenges and how much of it is actually in
Speaker 3: the hands of the pilot?
Speaker 1: Sully comes to mind for me. Is there a balance there?
Speaker 4: There is? Aircraft are very highly automated, So what's happening
Speaker 4: these days is the role of the pilot is changing
Speaker 4: from basic stick and rudder. If you go back fifty years,
Speaker 4: when it was all about your capability to practically handle
Speaker 4: the aircraft physically, it's changed from that into actually managing
Speaker 4: the automation to achieve a safe outcome. So, yes, the
Speaker 4: role of the pilot is changing. Automation has made it
Speaker 4: very much safer. There are there are many types of
Speaker 4: accidents that used to happen in the past that have
Speaker 4: been significantly reduced. For example, flight into terrain. We have
Speaker 4: terrain avoidance warning systems that's stopped a lot of terrain
Speaker 4: related accidents where people are descended into terrain without knowing
Speaker 4: that it was there in bad weather for example. Then
Speaker 4: there's the what's called the traffic advisory systems that they
Speaker 4: have on aircraft where it actually tells you when there's
Speaker 4: another aircraft closing or within within a particular range. It
Speaker 4: gives you a warning. And now the automated systems will
Speaker 4: actually take over and take aways of action as needed.
Speaker 4: So there are various technological advancements that have made huge
Speaker 4: improvements in safety, and the pilots have to learn how
Speaker 4: to manage that automation and also trust the automation and
Speaker 4: make decisions which are based on the circumstance of the time. So, yes,
Speaker 4: the role is changing, but it's a combination of both.
Speaker 4: The automation is a huge help for pilots.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 6: A shock.
Speaker 3: When we board a plane, we all expect to get
Speaker 3: to our destination in one piece, not end up in
Speaker 3: a different country or even back where we started. But
Speaker 3: what are your rights as a passenger when things do
Speaker 3: go wrong? We're joined now by Consumer and z Ed's
Speaker 3: Jessica Walker. Let's start with turbulence. Jessica, if you get
Speaker 3: injured mid flight, what can you actually do about it?
Speaker 1: From a consumer point of view.
Speaker 6: The turbulence is a really interesting and this isn't something
Speaker 6: that our members have complained to us about as yet,
Speaker 6: so we don't have advice ready to go. But you know,
Speaker 6: generally speaking, when something happens that is outside the airline's control,
Speaker 6: so something like turbulence, you know, looking at what happened
Speaker 6: with the recent extreme event, I believe it was the
Speaker 6: Singapore Airlines or it's between Singapore and Auckland flight. The
Speaker 6: airline seemed to handle that really well. So that'll be
Speaker 6: your first part of call would be to go to
Speaker 6: the airline, ask for us this sense and see what
Speaker 6: they can do to help you out. We've been reading
Speaker 6: that this is something that is expected to be increasing
Speaker 6: in coming years, and so it's something that consumers do
Speaker 6: need to be aware of when they're bucking flights. I
Speaker 6: know from my experience in the office that people who
Speaker 6: are already nervous travelers, it's giving them something else to
Speaker 6: worry about. But it's really important that you have a
Speaker 6: conversation with the airline if anything like that is to happen,
Speaker 6: because that will be your best part of call.
Speaker 3: It's probably more common that your flight might end up
Speaker 3: in the wrong destination hey, or actually back where it's
Speaker 3: started in some cases.
Speaker 1: What can you do in this situation?
Speaker 3: Is that something you can take up with the airline
Speaker 3: or get a refund, or what can you do.
Speaker 6: So again, that would be something that's clustered outside the
Speaker 6: airlines control because you know they couldn't have foreseen that happening.
Speaker 6: Or you know, if there's an extreme weather event which
Speaker 6: results in turbulence, then they're doing what they can to
Speaker 6: keep you safe. And so it's not, for example, like
Speaker 6: a maintenance issue with an aeroplane, which means that either
Speaker 6: your flight's delayed or canceled or you end up in
Speaker 6: the wrong city. In those circumstances, you've got really clear rights.
Speaker 6: And so in an example where there is an extreme
Speaker 6: event like turbulence and the airline has done all it
Speaker 6: can to protect you, but gets you to the safest
Speaker 6: point of disembarking if you like, then the rules it
Speaker 6: would be different.
Speaker 3: When we talk about things that are in the airlines control,
Speaker 3: what kind of things are those.
Speaker 6: So that's things like maintenance. So if there's a problem
Speaker 6: with the airplane, which means it can't take off, if
Speaker 6: it's something like staff sickness, which happened and awful like
Speaker 6: this time two years ago, we were calling it Airmageddon
Speaker 6: in the office, and that was because so many flights
Speaker 6: were being canceled because of staff shortages due to a
Speaker 6: COVID wave.
Speaker 5: In New Zealand says it's cutting its flight schedule over
Speaker 5: the next six months. There's the airline experiences the highest
Speaker 5: level and crew sicknesses, and over a decade, around one
Speaker 5: hundred thousand passengers will have your flights canceled or rescheduled,
Speaker 5: which has raised concerns about the rights of consumers.
Speaker 6: So all those things, the things that theoretically are within
Speaker 6: the control of the airline, things that are outside of
Speaker 6: the control of the airline are things that wouldn't really
Speaker 6: come as a surprise to you. So and the COVID
Speaker 6: restrictions were in place and flights were grounded, we knew
Speaker 6: what the rules were, and so it was no surprise
Speaker 6: to any of us that certain flights weren't taking off.
Speaker 6: Or if there is really extreme weather, you know, for example,
Speaker 6: you look at the window and it's really thick fog,
Speaker 6: then it's not going to be a surprise to you
Speaker 6: that the airline decides to cancel or delay a flight
Speaker 6: and that is for safety issues, but that is something
Speaker 6: that they couldn't have foreseen. And so in those instances
Speaker 6: we were classed as outside the airlines control. And so
Speaker 6: you're right, are quite different.
Speaker 3: What are your rights when say your flight is canceled
Speaker 3: due to something within the airline's control.
Speaker 6: So if it's a domestic flight and the cancelation is
Speaker 6: for reasons within the airlines control, the first thing we
Speaker 6: would always urge impacted passengers to do is to find
Speaker 6: out what the reason for the cancelation or delay is.
Speaker 6: Because we are hearing that this is getting better, that
Speaker 6: communications from airlines is improving, and that's something we've pushed
Speaker 6: them really hard on. But it used to be they
Speaker 6: weren't always upfront about the reason for the cancelation or delay,
Speaker 6: which put you in a really tricky situation as a
Speaker 6: consumer to know what your rights were. But if the
Speaker 6: airline is clear with you that So the example I
Speaker 6: gave before, you know a maintenance issue which means that
Speaker 6: the flight is unavailable the planes unavailable, then in that
Speaker 6: instance you are entitled to reimbursement up to ten times
Speaker 6: the cost of the ticket or the cost of the delay,
Speaker 6: whichever is lower. So the cost of delay could be
Speaker 6: things like a new flight, perhaps accommodation if there isn't
Speaker 6: a flight available until the next day to meals so
Speaker 6: you know, you shouldn't be in a worse off position
Speaker 6: just because the flight didn't take off. See, you need
Speaker 6: to keep hold of all of your receipts and then
Speaker 6: submit those to the airline and put your claim in.
Speaker 6: You'd find that both the airlines jets down in their
Speaker 6: New Zealand would say that claims have to be reasonable.
Speaker 6: So what that means is, you know, you couldn't go
Speaker 6: and buck into a five star hotel that's five hundred
Speaker 6: dollars a night and expect to get that reinburst. For
Speaker 6: one reason, it's because there is a cap of ten
Speaker 6: times the cost of the ticket, but also they would
Speaker 6: say that that's not really fair. However, if the only
Speaker 6: accommodation that is available is that price, and it does
Speaker 6: come within the lower end of the limit. It's not
Speaker 6: your fault, is it. So I think the thing to
Speaker 6: bear in mind is that you shouldn't be out of
Speaker 6: pocket because of a delay or cancelation that is within
Speaker 6: the airlines control.
Speaker 1: And other things you can ask for as well.
Speaker 3: You mentioned meals, but also perhaps could you get a change.
Speaker 1: Of clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, things like that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I guess it would depend on the situation,
Speaker 6: because it is all about what's reasonable. So, you know,
Speaker 6: so you're traveling and your somewhere long and expected to
Speaker 6: be so it might be that you need, you know,
Speaker 6: something to sleep in and a clean pair of bunders
Speaker 6: for the next day in a tooth bridge, you know,
Speaker 6: so that they would be reasonable things that you could
Speaker 6: claim for. But you couldn't go out and buy a
Speaker 6: whole new wardrobe. So it's just about being reasonable. Otherwise
Speaker 6: the airline is likely to decline your request.
Speaker 3: Is that the same with international flights as well, or
Speaker 3: is it slightly different.
Speaker 6: International flights is different because it depends who you are
Speaker 6: flying with, where you're flying to and from. Say, for example,
Speaker 6: if you are, whether European airline or departing from a
Speaker 6: European airline, you've got great protections. So it's definitely worth
Speaker 6: heading to our website or doing a Google just to
Speaker 6: see what your rights are if you are impacted by
Speaker 6: an international delay or cancelation, because it really is quite
Speaker 6: different for different jurisdictions. So the States have got different rules,
Speaker 6: Australia has different rules. So the advice that I'm giving
Speaker 6: now relates to domestic airlines, but most times you will
Speaker 6: have some really pretty good protections. So it really pays
Speaker 6: to not necessarily just take what the international airline is
Speaker 6: telling you was gospel. You know from my own experience,
Speaker 6: I've had to pretty hard in the past with British airways.
Speaker 6: My in laws have done the same, and it works.
Speaker 6: If you know you're right, you're in a really powerful position.
Speaker 3: I guess a lot of people may be quite surprised
Speaker 3: on what they actually can claim.
Speaker 6: I think that's right, and that's one of the reasons
Speaker 6: that we launched a campaign a couple of years ago.
Speaker 6: We called it our Flight Rights Campaign, and that's because
Speaker 6: we were getting no end of members and people that
Speaker 6: were aware of us getting in touch to say they
Speaker 6: were surprised that the flight was delayed or canceled and
Speaker 6: all of a sudden, they're incurring all these fees. And
Speaker 6: what we found was that people didn't understand their rights
Speaker 6: because the airlines weren't being upfront and you know, worst
Speaker 6: case scenario. We found that some people were actually being
Speaker 6: misled and we didn't think that was fair, and that
Speaker 6: could have been that they just weren't being told their rights.
Speaker 6: But also there were some airlines telling people that they
Speaker 6: could claim up to a set feel of I think
Speaker 6: it was one hundred and fifty dollars a night for
Speaker 6: accommodation and thirty dollars for a meal. But our argument
Speaker 6: was that's not fair because that's not actually in the
Speaker 6: Civil Aviation Act, that's not written down anywhere. And so
Speaker 6: of course any reimbursement claims should be reasonable, but people
Speaker 6: shouldn't be out of pocket. And so we think it's
Speaker 6: really important that people do familiarize themselves with their rights.
Speaker 6: And as they say, we are hearing anecdotally that the
Speaker 6: moment there has been a florry of cancelations and it
Speaker 6: does seem that our New Zealand and this instance have
Speaker 6: been really good and upfront about the reason for the cancelation,
Speaker 6: but it's definitely worth doing a quick Google head to
Speaker 6: our campaign page just to find out what your rights
Speaker 6: are so that you can make sure you're not being
Speaker 6: shortchanged if you fail to take off.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us, Jessica. That's it for this episode
Speaker 3: of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 3: stories and extensive news coverage at enzed Herald dot co
Speaker 3: dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles
Speaker 3: with sound engineer Paddy Fox.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 3: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 3: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
Speaker 3: behind the headlines.