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Speaker 1: Right, we have a problem in New Zealand. We don't

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Speaker 1: have a twenty four to seven backup airport anywhere in

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Speaker 1: the country. Currently, long haul airliners flying into Auckland, for example,

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Speaker 1: they've got to carry an extra six tons of fuel.

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Speaker 1: This is in case they need to divert at the

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Speaker 1: last minute somewhere else. Now Ohakia usually stands in as

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Speaker 1: the backup. But since the pandemic, the Air Force Bass

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Speaker 1: controllty I hasn't been staffed overnight. Kath O'Brien is the

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Speaker 1: Barnes executive director and joins me this evening. Get a

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Speaker 1: cath ning Ryan is six just to start with six tons?

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Speaker 1: Is that heaps? So how much do the big jets

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Speaker 1: usually carry on with them?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I think the important thing to think about

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Speaker 2: is that, yes, it's six ton, but if you're carrying

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Speaker 2: six ton of jet fuel, that means you cannot carry

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Speaker 2: the equivalent weight of passengers or cargo. So not only

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Speaker 2: are you having to carry the extra wright of the

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Speaker 2: of the jet fuel, but you're actually losing out on

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Speaker 2: carrying more passengers to New Zealand. And some aircraft are

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Speaker 2: having to fly and limited in the seats they can sell,

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Speaker 2: so they actually can't sell the whole plane because they

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Speaker 2: have to carry that extra fuel?

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Speaker 1: Does it how much does it extra? Does it cost them?

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Speaker 1: And do you run into this problem? And is presumably

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Speaker 1: not in Australia, they have somewhere else to go.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it costs the jet fuel. I think publicly available

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Speaker 2: information it's probably somewhere maybe six kindred jets who we

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Speaker 2: might get some change out of ten thousand New Zealand dollars,

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Speaker 2: but of course airlines will henche it out over time.

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Speaker 2: But it's a daily cost. If you're flying to New

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Speaker 2: Zealand daily, and bearing in mind you're probably paying something

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Speaker 2: like forty five thousand dollars to actually just land your

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Speaker 2: plane in New Zealand between airport charges and customs and buyosecurity,

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Speaker 2: and then you've got another ten for your extra jet fuel.

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Speaker 2: And that's before you pay your staff, or buy your

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Speaker 2: ordinary fuel, or buy your food, or pay for your

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Speaker 2: waste or anything else. And the thing is, it really

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Speaker 2: starts to make it a hard business to do when

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Speaker 2: all those costs.

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Speaker 1: That up one hundred percent. So what's the solution.

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Speaker 2: Look For a long time now, we've been talking about

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Speaker 2: making Hackey are available so you know, for those who

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Speaker 2: don't know, a Hackey is not far from Palmerston North.

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Speaker 2: It's a wonderful military base that serves New Zealand's defense needs.

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Speaker 2: It's also able to act as an ultimate which means

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Speaker 2: that airlines that are flying to New Zealand can plan

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Speaker 2: to fly to a Hakier instead of Auckland or christ Church,

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Speaker 2: which is essentially a shorter distance to fly to a Hakia,

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Speaker 2: saving the jet fuel. And if they're available around the clock,

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Speaker 2: they can receive you know, five or six large planes

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Speaker 2: in an emergency if we really did lose capability at

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Speaker 2: Aukland or christ Church. So it's a very you know,

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Speaker 2: operationally important airport. But since the pandemic it hasn't been

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Speaker 2: available at nighttime. Why not look primarily because we had

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Speaker 2: a bit of a challenge with firefighters, which the Defense

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Speaker 2: Force has resolved, and now we continue to have a

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Speaker 2: challenge with air traffic controllers. And you know, it is

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Speaker 2: a big effort to train specialized staff like that and

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Speaker 2: have them based you know, not far from Bulls. But

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Speaker 2: it's a really critical think it actually wouldn't really cost

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Speaker 2: that much money to kind of fix and it's probably

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Speaker 2: the biggest bang for buck that we could do for

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Speaker 2: New Zealand aviation and tourism because with that staffing, airlines

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Speaker 2: could come to New Zealand anytime. They could plan to

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Speaker 2: come at any hour of the night. But at the moment,

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Speaker 2: long haul aviation is limited to plan for New Zealand

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Speaker 2: between you know, essentially first thing in the morning and

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Speaker 2: later into the evening, and then that's it.

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Speaker 1: Would it genuinely well, I mean obviously there are those benefits.

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Speaker 1: Would it bring down the cost of a ticket?

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Speaker 2: Well, certainly, it saves obviously that cost of the additional fuel,

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Speaker 2: and then it allows you to sell or tickets in

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Speaker 2: more cargo, more customer tickets and more cargo, so it

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Speaker 2: spreads the cost over the whole aircraft. So it is beneficial.

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Speaker 2: But I think what it also does is we'll remote

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Speaker 2: competition because more airlines will be able to plan journeys

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Speaker 2: here when we've got more operational capability like that.

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Speaker 1: We haven't talked about fanoa Paie. Is that not suitable?

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Speaker 1: Too small?

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Speaker 2: Look, it's essentially not for lots of reasons, not least

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Speaker 2: because of the housing that's really close around it, and

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Speaker 2: also because O'haka is beautifully placed right sort of almost

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Speaker 2: smack in the middle between Auckland and christ Church, which

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Speaker 2: are New Zealand's sort of significant jet ports excluding Queenstown.

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Speaker 2: Then you know, it's a lovely middle point. So it's

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Speaker 2: so physically it's in the right place. In fact, you know,

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Speaker 2: ever since New Zealand civil aviation system was designed way

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Speaker 2: back in you know, nineteen forty, Ohakia was noted to

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Speaker 2: be the most sensible ultimate so it's always been it's

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Speaker 2: just that we haven't been able to resell it in

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Speaker 2: recent years.

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Speaker 1: How come what's the problem with just going to christ Church?

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Speaker 1: Like if you can't get to talk and go to

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Speaker 1: christ Church vice versa.

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Speaker 2: Well, certainly lots of airlines do that now, So if

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Speaker 2: you can't have access to a hockey are, you'll go

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Speaker 2: to christ Church. The trick about christ Church is that

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Speaker 2: sometimes it's fobby, and that happens quite regularly through the year,

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Speaker 2: and sometimes christ Church will do really important runway maintenance

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Speaker 2: so they will close their runway in a planned way,

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Speaker 2: and so at those times airlines can't plan for christ Church.

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Speaker 2: And over the last couple of years we have had

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Speaker 2: multiple and multiple and multiple examples of very large, well

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Speaker 2: known international airlines sitting up in their home countries with

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Speaker 2: a full plane waiting to take off to New Zealand

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Speaker 2: and being unable to depart because New Zealand is effectively

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Speaker 2: not open.

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Speaker 1: God, that's embarrassing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah it is, Yeah it is. And it's a problem

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Speaker 2: that we could really easily fix for not particularly much money,

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Speaker 2: and I just don't understand why we can't.

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Speaker 1: Catho Brian appreciate your time, Border Airline Representatives, New Zealand

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Speaker 1: Executive Director. For more from Heather Dup and Drive, listen

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Speaker 1: live to News Talks at B from four pm weekdays,

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