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Speaker 1: And Bridge Rich Good news this evening. If you don't

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Speaker 1: want to sit in a packed airport lounge. Air New

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Speaker 1: Zealander is looking at a new luxury lounge for elite flyers.

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Speaker 1: They're being tight lipped about the idea. It was floated

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Speaker 1: apparently at an invested day presentation. And if it looks

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Speaker 1: anything like what Quantus offers could include restaurants style dining

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Speaker 1: and free massages, wouldn't that be nice? Aviation commentator Irene

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Speaker 1: King is with me Iren good evening.

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Speaker 2: Good evening.

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Speaker 1: So a lounge is a lounge, is a lounge, but

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Speaker 1: some are beautiful and some are crowded. Is Air New

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Speaker 1: Zealand's lounges two crowded? Now?

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Speaker 2: I think? So? I mean that's really I think you

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Speaker 2: for the volume to going through the use how much?

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Speaker 1: How much extra do you charge to put on a

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Speaker 1: fancy lounge? And if you do, you just do one

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Speaker 1: at one airport or do you is there any an

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Speaker 1: expectation that you would have one everywhere?

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Speaker 2: Look, I've seen this concept floated about four or five times,

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Speaker 2: and I've seen it as executed once here in New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: So I think in per degree they're just flying a kite.

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Speaker 2: But when they did execute it, it was so exclusive

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Speaker 2: that hardly anyone knew where it was. I saw it,

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Speaker 2: I knew it existed, and it was just intended to

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Speaker 2: be for the very high ball high you know, high

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Speaker 2: worse travelers. So most people were excluded and most people

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Speaker 2: ended up in the normal lounge, and so the normal

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Speaker 2: lounge became very crowded. This particular lounge that they did

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Speaker 2: put in place lasted from them We're about two years.

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Speaker 2: And that's because it's just not the demand here in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand for that level of exclusivity.

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Speaker 1: Right, how much would it cost?

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Speaker 2: Very expensive?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how much would it cost you to put it on?

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Speaker 1: Because you've got to staff it all the time too,

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Speaker 1: don't you.

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Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, And you know you're competing with Emirates, which

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Speaker 2: already has a high end lounge in Auckland, and you know,

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Speaker 2: any ChIL just doesn't offer the first class service. You know,

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Speaker 2: they just don't compete with the likes of Emorates, and

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Speaker 2: so the patronage is very low, the cost were very high.

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Speaker 2: You know, you do anything at Auckland Airport and the

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Speaker 2: costume down in the league, and like I say, it

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Speaker 2: only lasted about two years because the demand just.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't there interesting, Irene, Thanks for that. Irene King

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Speaker 1: Aviation commentated with us. For more from Hither Duplessy, Allen

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