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Speaker 1: Trouble on the tarmac for the coast less than eighteen

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Speaker 1: months in Origin there could be acting its Westport to

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Speaker 1: Wellington route. It's a bid for the government support that

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Speaker 1: looks like it's dead in the water. In New Zealand

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Speaker 1: Airport's CEO Billy Moore with us this morning. Hey Billy, Hi,

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Speaker 1: what's going on here?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Look, it's it's a tricky situation. Originea has been

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Speaker 2: clear they'll keep monitoring the route until mid May. It

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Speaker 2: has to work commercially for them and we have to

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Speaker 2: respect that. The difficulty we see in the regions to

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Speaker 2: the place like Westport is that the demand for the

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Speaker 2: route is there, but it has to also be matched

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Speaker 2: by the frequency and timing of services. So passenger numbers

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Speaker 2: will depend on it having enough like frequency to make

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Speaker 2: it practical I say commuters, and if you can't get

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Speaker 2: that scale up, the overall financial sustainability of the route

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Speaker 2: is harder to maintain. So it's a bit of a

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Speaker 2: chicken and egg situation with the timing of the routes,

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Speaker 2: of frequency and getting those numbers up to Origin. That's

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Speaker 2: what the council will be grappling with. How do you

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Speaker 2: give it a jolt so it can become something sustainable.

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Speaker 1: This is your classic regional airligned problem.

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Speaker 2: Isn't it. It really is, and in a lot of

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Speaker 2: countries around the world, there are processes to provide a

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Speaker 2: bit of that baseline support and get it moving so

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Speaker 2: that it becomes more sustainable over time. The clincher in

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Speaker 2: this case is that we support is also a joint

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Speaker 2: need to airport. That means it's one of the last

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Speaker 2: remaining airports around the country five of them that is

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Speaker 2: also co owned by the taxpayer. So taxpayers will already

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Speaker 2: cover half of the airport short for each year just

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Speaker 2: to keep essential airport services open, so things like emergencies, healthcare, ambulance.

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Speaker 2: So the question for us is how do we make

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Speaker 2: sure that public contribution that will continue anyway, is also

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Speaker 2: supporting a passenger route to make the actual public good

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Speaker 2: of that money worthwhile. So we definitely need to find

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Speaker 2: solution here.

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Speaker 1: One thing I've noticed, I've lot of friends who are

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Speaker 1: increasingly using regional airlines to get to places like Auckland

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Speaker 1: to Ketty Ketty with who does that one barrier barrier

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Speaker 1: Auckland to part up at our mood that's Chatham Air.

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Speaker 1: They're great airlines and they often have you know, good times.

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Speaker 1: They often have a flat fear structure, so it's a

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Speaker 1: lot more affordable than you know, your price gounging Air

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, et cetera. Is that how do you get

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Speaker 1: those airlines onto the search engines, because that's one of

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Speaker 1: the problems I reckon you find when you do a

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Speaker 1: search through an international that they don't pop up. You

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Speaker 1: just get jet Star and Air New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: Look, you're absolutely right to putting that out. It's something

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Speaker 2: we've been talking to the government about these airlines. You know,

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Speaker 2: they are great operations, but they are small in scale,

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Speaker 2: so it is tough for some of them to invest

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Speaker 2: in the systems that allow them to be in those

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Speaker 2: search engines and some of the other capabilities that we

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Speaker 2: see from the big airlines. Ear chatam So does have

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Speaker 2: that capability, but we think there is some more things

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Speaker 2: we can do to make sure their great offerings are

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Speaker 2: exposed to more and more people. Say, as you say,

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Speaker 2: once you start flying on them, you do tend to

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Speaker 2: stick because it is a great.

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Speaker 1: Service one hundred percent. Billy, appreciate your time this morning.

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Speaker 1: Billy Moore, who's New Zealand airport's CEO. For more from

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Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to news talks.

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