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Speaker 1: A couple of things. In aviation, O'harky has been given

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Speaker 1: the green light overnight as a twenty four seven backup runway.

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Speaker 1: This is for emergencies and stuff like that. Four and

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Speaker 1: a half million to extend the air traffic control because

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Speaker 1: that needs to be twenty four seven now. Also removes

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Speaker 1: the need for airliance to carry that extra fuel on

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Speaker 1: certain routes. And James Meager is the Associate Minister of

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Speaker 1: Transport and is with us. Good morning morning, Mike, So

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Speaker 1: harky are twenty four to seven? Is this material? How

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Speaker 1: often you need to land a plane there?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, not often. I think in the past couple of

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Speaker 2: years it's been once or twice on those occasions. But

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Speaker 2: it's really beneficial for the long haul flights to have

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Speaker 2: that as an alternative. We think that if it could

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Speaker 2: result in an additional couple of services coming to the

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Speaker 2: country or a couple of larger planes, that it'll pay

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Speaker 2: for itself.

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Speaker 1: Would they I mean, why would you land it Aharkier?

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Speaker 1: And if you did, how you're getting downtown and all that?

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Speaker 1: You know the logistics of it.

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Speaker 2: Well, essentially o'haki is used as a backup landing place

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Speaker 2: if Auckland or CHRISTI. You're unavailable for those long haul flights.

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Speaker 2: A Harky's got the third longest runway in the country.

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Speaker 2: And if you're a wide body aircraft coming from Qatar

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Speaker 2: or Doughha or something like that, you have to have

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Speaker 2: an alternative nominated. Now, if you're flying to Auckland and

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Speaker 2: your alternative is christ It, you have to carry extra fuel.

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Speaker 2: That reduces your freight and your seats and reduces the

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Speaker 2: amount of I guess money you can make. So it's

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Speaker 2: a disincentive if they can't nominate Ohaki and wek it

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Speaker 2: will make a bit of a difference for the likes

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Speaker 2: of maybe Katariir or some of those airlines.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so when you start to handbreak on economic growth,

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Speaker 1: how do you justify that.

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Speaker 2: Well, as those airlines are choosing to downgrade the size

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Speaker 2: of their services, that means fewer people are coming to

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Speaker 2: New Zealands, fewer dollars. Yeah, so last year Qatar actually

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Speaker 2: downgraded the size of the air flight basically just the

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Speaker 2: number of people carried and the number of amount of

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Speaker 2: fuel aid to carry to a smaller plane. That mean

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Speaker 2: fewer passages coming and it has that economic impact of

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Speaker 2: fewer people here, few people spending money, and fewer people

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Speaker 2: enjoying our country. So difference.

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Speaker 1: Okay, good, While I got you this Golden Air thing,

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Speaker 1: this fund you're running, so Golden Air get money. If

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Speaker 1: they can't make it's because it's a loan, discretionary loan.

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Speaker 1: If they can't make it work, they can't make it work.

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Speaker 1: Are you putting our money at risk?

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Speaker 2: No, it is alone, as you said, and we are

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Speaker 2: a priority in terms of paying it back. But all

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Speaker 2: these things do come with That's like Cavat. You're right.

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Speaker 2: If they can't make it work, then in the long

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Speaker 2: run we've got to find out a way to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we've got reliable regional connectivity. But we think

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Speaker 2: this is a good option. It's a concessionary, low interest

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Speaker 2: loan to be able to allow them to refinance their

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Speaker 2: debt and make them upgrades. And that connection between Tarcica

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Speaker 2: and Nelson Wellington Academy is really important. And the road goes

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Speaker 2: out and the slips, so we think we make it work.

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Speaker 1: Where did originy get Because I was reading about them

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Speaker 1: and their Westport to Wellington route, The suggestion was they

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Speaker 1: weren't going to get any money out of that fund.

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Speaker 1: Did they and if they didn't, why not.

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Speaker 2: So there's still some more applications to be considered under

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Speaker 2: that fund. So we've sort of announced the first part

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Speaker 2: of it, and there's about twenty nine on a million

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Speaker 2: to go in that fund. That'll be part of the mix.

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Speaker 2: I think with a number of other airlines, Origin are

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Speaker 2: in a slightly different situation because I think they are

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Speaker 2: less looking for things like diet support and more looking

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Speaker 2: for root subsidies and that's not something that the government

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Speaker 2: has gone to at this point.

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Speaker 1: All right, appreciate it. James Meager, Associate Minister of Transport.

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