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Speaker 1: Good news in our aviation sector. Well, I think it's good.

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Speaker 1: New smaller planes seem to be picking up increasing business.

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Speaker 1: Barrier Air, for example, started an Auckland to Kerry Carey

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Speaker 1: route back in August. Seats continue to sell out, which

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Speaker 1: is good. So are we seeing a sort of a

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Speaker 1: reshaping of the regional landscape? Barrier Air Boss Grant Bacon's

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Speaker 1: with us. Grant, morning to you, Good morning Mike, how

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Speaker 1: much I'm very well indeed thank you. How many seats

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Speaker 1: do you offer Auckland to Kerry Carey and are they

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Speaker 1: all in general taken up?

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Speaker 2: So we currently have twenty sectors per week and that

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Speaker 2: equates to a round about fifteen hundred seats per month

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Speaker 2: available and currently we're getting a load factor of around

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Speaker 2: seventy percent. That good, Yeah, that's good. Yep, no, that's

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Speaker 2: that's certainly paying its way.

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Speaker 1: So when we see in New Zealand in the news

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Speaker 1: last week they're cutting down services between christ Church, Queenstown,

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Speaker 1: Danneed and Wellington, christ Church, New Plymouth, blenh and Wellington,

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Speaker 1: do you go hello there's an opportunity or not?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, there's a fair amount of of I guess robustness.

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Speaker 2: We need to see with Kerry Kerry in terms of

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Speaker 2: making sure that the model does work. But as the

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Speaker 2: days and months go on, we're seeing that a complementary

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Speaker 2: service in line with the national carrier is actually proving

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Speaker 2: to be great for consumers and has a viable business

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Speaker 2: case as well.

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Speaker 1: Is there a big difference between say, Auckland Kerry Carey's

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Speaker 1: drivable Dunedin, Wellington, christ Dutch New Plymouth isn't? Does that

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Speaker 1: make a material difference to a company like yours.

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Speaker 2: Yeah it does. So we've got quite a good reputation

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Speaker 2: in the north of New Zealand. We've built the business

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Speaker 2: since twenty fifteen. What we see as an issue in

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Speaker 2: terms of those longer routes is the fact that actually

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Speaker 2: at the moment, the regional aviation space is in poor shape.

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Speaker 2: And that is not only relevant to New Zealand, it's

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Speaker 2: also moving into other countries as well where they're having issues.

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Speaker 2: And that primarily comes down to the fact that there's

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Speaker 2: actually not a lot of aircraft being manufactured right now

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Speaker 2: that is capable of doing those longer routes. So that

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Speaker 2: is an issue.

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Speaker 1: So that's an issue even for a company like us,

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Speaker 1: because I'm looking at Eaty Guard the other day, they're

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Speaker 1: re refurbishing all their fleets. I mean this is a big,

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Speaker 1: major international player. They cannot get planes for lavend or money.

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Speaker 1: Boeing's on strike at the moment. Airbus deliveries are down,

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Speaker 1: So even at your small plane level, it's an issue.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, most definitely. So not only can you not find aeroplanes,

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Speaker 2: you can't get parts for them, and that's a major

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Speaker 2: contributor to where the fair prices had to go over

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Speaker 2: the last eighteen months in terms of what a consumer pays.

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Speaker 2: And then the technology. A lot of legacy aircraft manufacturers

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Speaker 2: of a smaller nature have stopped producing or they're moving

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Speaker 2: their attention elsewhere, so it is an issue to fulfill

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Speaker 2: it into island route of a of a slightly longer haul.

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Speaker 1: Interesting insight, Grant, Glad it's going well for you though, Grant,

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Speaker 1: I can bury a air CEO with us this morning.

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