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Speaker 1: Aviation thirty million for regional airlines. Told you about that

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Speaker 1: the other day. Of course, now we've got the Big

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Speaker 1: Aviation Action Plan twenty five areas to grow in future,

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Speaker 1: proof of sector, reducing certification waiting times, expanding drone use,

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Speaker 1: boosting regional airlines, making wider use of a hockey at airbase.

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Speaker 1: James Meager is the Associate Minister of Transportant is back

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Speaker 1: with us. James Morning, Morning, Mike. Is this a fix,

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Speaker 1: a revolution or a bit of a prod.

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Speaker 2: I think it's somewhere in between the three. If that's

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Speaker 2: a thing. It'll fix some issues, but it also a

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Speaker 2: little bit future looking about advanced aviation. How do we

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Speaker 2: get better use out of drones. How do we make

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Speaker 2: use of our brilliant innovators to make sure we grow

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Speaker 2: and have a really successful aviation sector. So it's a

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Speaker 2: little mix of the three.

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Speaker 1: You were concerned about all you've been told to be

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Speaker 1: concerned about the rising cost of doing business in New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: Does this change any of that.

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Speaker 2: There is a section in there around actions that the

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Speaker 2: government and industry can take to look at costs and all,

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Speaker 2: of course all those costs get passed on through the

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Speaker 2: airlines through to customers. So there's a costs piece in there.

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Speaker 2: There's a review of CAAA how it's funded, and there's

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Speaker 2: also a view of eay's levies too, So there is

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Speaker 2: a part in there when you look at the certification rules.

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Speaker 2: If we can make things certified more quickly, that's going

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Speaker 2: to reduce costs of those operators and eventually that'll flow

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Speaker 2: through the consumers as well.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the workforce and retention of pilots, will things change materially?

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Speaker 1: What's the whole up with pilots that people don't want

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Speaker 1: to be a pilot? Is it too expensive? Is the

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Speaker 1: what's going on?

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Speaker 2: Again, it's a mix of both. It is quite expensive

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Speaker 2: to be a Pilot's about one hundred thousand dollars to train.

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Speaker 2: It takes slightly longer to train here in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: and say some of our comparable jurisdictions overseas. So we're

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Speaker 2: going to look at how do they train their pilots.

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Speaker 2: Is there anything we can do to change our qualification

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Speaker 2: framework to make it easier and faster to train maintaining safety.

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Speaker 2: That means those pilots can get out in the workforce,

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Speaker 2: pay off their loan more quickly and have the opportunity

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Speaker 2: to work, So that's part of it. There's also engineers

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Speaker 2: other service delivery aspects as well.

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Speaker 1: Is there a loan cap somebody told me this morning

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Speaker 1: there's a loan cap on training to be a pilot.

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Speaker 1: Is that true?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there is. It was put in place I think

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Speaker 2: over a decade ago, and it reflects the fact that

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Speaker 2: there was a large cost furden on barring to the

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Speaker 2: commercial pilot and there are statistics that showed that it

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Speaker 2: took quite a while for those loans to be paid back.

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Speaker 2: So that hasn't changed in a few years. And the

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Speaker 2: industry has called for that to be looked at, and

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Speaker 2: that is part of the action plan.

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Speaker 1: But are we looking or are we doing well?

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Speaker 2: Realistically, that is a financial cost, and there's always trade

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Speaker 2: offs when you've got those financial costs. If we can

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Speaker 2: amend the way that the training is delivered and train

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Speaker 2: more pilots here think those training pilots into the workforce,

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Speaker 2: they can pay down their loans more quickly. It's in

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Speaker 2: the mix. It's probably not the solution to the overall

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Speaker 2: problem though.

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Speaker 1: Okay, oh haki, what's that about? Being open for business?

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Speaker 1: Twenty four seven was that not available to us anyway.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what's it doing when do they close it?

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Speaker 1: Like five o'clock or something.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's primarily a defense for space, but every airline

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Speaker 2: that comes into the country has to have a backup

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Speaker 2: or a sort of an alternative runway. In case, say

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Speaker 2: Auckland Airport is close. Now, the wide body aircraft such

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Speaker 2: as like the likes of Katar Airways would like to

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Speaker 2: use Ohaki as a backup, but because it's not available

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Speaker 2: twenty four seven, and because a lot of their flights

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Speaker 2: come in so early hours of the morning, they couldn't

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Speaker 2: use that. Therefore they had to go down to christ Church,

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Speaker 2: which meant they had to reduce the size of their

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Speaker 2: planes hopeless. Yeah, and so we're looking at what can

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Speaker 2: we do to convert o'harkia to be available twenty four seven.

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Speaker 2: That's really around air traffic control and accessibility to foreign

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Speaker 2: emergency services. It's a big opportunity because if we can

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Speaker 2: get more big wide body planes in here, then we

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Speaker 2: can boost our tourism and grow our economy.

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Speaker 1: In New Zealand. Will assess what it's needed or what

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Speaker 1: is needed for a fleet expansion, jet fuel demand and

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Speaker 1: electricity for next generation aircraft? Why is that included? And

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Speaker 1: here given that they'd already do this anyway, wouldn't they?

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Speaker 2: Well, any ger were part of the Aviation Council, and

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Speaker 2: I think they wanted to emphasize the fact that they

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Speaker 2: are doing this work and they will continue to do

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Speaker 2: this work. It's one of their big challenges is how

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Speaker 2: do they get more planes, more parts, and how do

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Speaker 2: they make sure that they've got a fleet that is

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Speaker 2: fit for future travel and that includes I guess electric

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Speaker 2: aircraft at some point. So it really was just a

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Speaker 2: round for what he going to do.

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Speaker 1: Do you honestly believe James is going to be electric?

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Speaker 1: I mean short of a four person plane that can

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Speaker 1: fly from Auckland to Corrimandel. Maybe no one's flying to

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Speaker 1: London on an electric plane.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean in nineteen oh three, when Richard

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Speaker 2: Pierce first flew down into Murcer, I think no one

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Speaker 2: really thought that the planes were up in there in

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Speaker 2: the first place. So look, time will tell, and if

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Speaker 2: it only ends up being that it's something that we

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Speaker 2: ship freight on, or if that it's uncruey aircraft, and

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Speaker 2: so be it. But it's worth looking into, and they

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Speaker 2: are trialing a few flights across the cook straight at

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Speaker 2: the moment for freight purposes. So it's something that's in

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Speaker 2: the mixt But I think realistically the future of aviation

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Speaker 2: over the next couple of decades is going to be better, faster, quieter,

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Speaker 2: more sustainable aircraft and that's probably chip fuel.

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Speaker 1: All right, mate, nice to talk to you. Appreciate it

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Speaker 1: very much. James megro I like the cut of his GYBN.

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Speaker 1: It's not just because he's from Canterbury, Associate Minister of Transport.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't necessarily agree with this, and I

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Speaker 1: don't know that anything's necessarily going to come of it.

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Speaker 1: I hope it is, but he seems to be on

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Speaker 1: top of his portfolio. It did remind me of the

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Speaker 1: story very Sober got angry with me. He was many

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Speaker 1: years ago. He was shipped off with a New Zealand

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Speaker 1: to Hawaii because of a looking at nut oil, remember

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Speaker 1: the famous nut oil story. And in New Zealand are

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Speaker 1: going to start flying planes on the nut oil, and

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Speaker 1: so they needed to fly Barry them along with the

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Speaker 1: whole cacophony of other journalists to go look at some plantation,

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Speaker 1: a few palm trees and write some stories about the

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Speaker 1: nut le Where's the nut oil? Hey, where's the nut oil?

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Speaker 2: Right? Here?

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Speaker 1: Was that teen years ago? Fifteen years ago I said

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Speaker 1: berries on a berries on a junket and he goes,

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Speaker 1: not a junket. There was absolutely not a junket. Where's

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Speaker 1: the nut oil? He ain't? No, and flying on nut oil.

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