Air New Zealand to Raise their Prices Yet Again

Air New Zealand has had to increase their prices 4 times this year because of the record high price of fuel, and they may be raising them again, according to Rob Fyfe, the airlines’ Chief Executive. In order to cover Air New Zealand’s fuel bill expenses, they will have to raise their fares by 20%, but Fyfe says that they don’t expect to do this, because they think that the demand will dry up before it gets to that. The cost of fuel as of June 30th had doubled to nearly 2 billion dollars, Fyfe said to Radio New Zealand. He stated that Air New Zealand has also been looking to cut capacity and costs of some of their routes.

Further, he said that the airline will be doing all that they can to alleviate the financial performance on the business from deteriorating. There are flights where they might look to reduce capacity if they are not able to cover all of their costs, he continued, but there are no flights that they are considering to cut. He said that Air New Zealand is in good with financial shares and may come out of the downturn they are in right now, positioning themselves better and relative to most other carriers. The challenge, he added, however, is huge.

Fyfe rejected a comment that Geoff Dixon, the Chief Executive of Qantas, stated recently that the carrier probably wouldn’t survive without merging with another carrier. He said that the airline, which is 78% owned by the government, was not talking to anyone about merging. He continued, saying that a takeover wouldn’t happen, as he doesn’t believe that there is anyone willing to sell the majority stake.

Find out more at: www.airnz.com