Kiwiblog

How weird. The Herald reports:

A leading unionist has attacked Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe over the company’s “grubby deal” with police that has led to staff caught drink-driving being penalised twice.

Andrew Little, secretary of the Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union and also president of the Labour Party, said the police had circumvented privacy and information laws and the airline had co-operated. …

Mr Little said that “Mr Fyfe’s response was less one of management heroism and more one of anger that the grubby deal had blown up in the airline’s face”.

He said that under that deal, airline staff processed for drink-driving faced criminal prosecution, appropriately, but also had the facts disclosed to Air NZ, so it could “exact a second punishment, usually dismissal, for the same offence”.

So the Labour Party President EPMU National Secretary thinks that it is a despicable thing that the Police tell Air New Zealand if a pilot gets charged with drink driving. Presumably Andrew thinks that it is nothing for Air New Zealand to worry about, as the drink driving took place in a car instead of a plane. This means that it is only *after* a pilot has also flown a plane while drunk, that Air New Zealand should be able to take action.

Sideswipe reports:

How does Air New Zealand communicate what is, and more importantly what is not, appropriate behaviour on its new Skycouch, aka Cuddle Class? Well, the national carrier is suggesting this ad might do the trick … Get it?

Heh that is very funny.

Their PR says:

The ‘Skycouch’, a specially designed row of three seats, has been engineered to create a lie-flat, flexible space all the way to the seat-back in front, providing a place for the kids to play, or the holy grail of economy travel – a flat surface for adults to relax and sleep.

Twenty-two sets of Skycouch seats will be available, being the first 11 window rows in the Economy Class cabin.

For two adults travelling, purchasing the Skycouch will be based on buying two seats at standard prices with the third seat at approximately half price. Full airfare details will be announced when it goes on sale from late April.

I can see this being pretty popular with couples and it only increases the combined cost by 25%. It may also do wonders for mile high stats

Mr Fyfe says each of the three zones in Air New Zealand’s long haul aircraft of the future will be a step ahead of competitors from a comfort perspective and the experience will be further underpinned by the world’s most innovative food and beverage service and state-of-the-art entertainment system.

“Being able to order a steak, medium rare in Business Premier, a pizza for two in Premium Economy or a late night snack in Economy, whenever you want, will be a very cool experience. New oven technology that will cook food from scratch rather than simply reheating and a new digital in-seat ordering service will make this truly the first time real food has been served at 35,000 feet.

Being able order the food you want, when you want, will be damn popular also I reckon.

The 340 seat 777-300 aircraft will be configured with 246 in Economy (including 66 seats creating 22 Skycouch combinations), 50 in Premium Economy and 44 in Business Premier.

Can’t wait!

Great to see Air NZ retains a great sense of humour. Hat Tip: Cactus Kate

I’m a big fan of most of what Air NZ does. Their technology investment has been great (love my m-pass and e-pass), and I fly then when I can. I love their safety video (and one of the “stars” was working on my domestic flight today – poor girl – everyone talking to her about it). So I am not an Air NZ basher.

But I couldn’t believe their customer service at the international terminal today. I got there at around 11.30 for a 3.30 flight to Thailand. I’m on Thai Air, but Air NZ do the checkins for them.

Bad enough that at 11.30 they have not even assigned a desk for check ins, so you literally do not even know where to wait. Then at 11.50 they put up a sign for the flight, so I go to the allocated desk, to be told that they will not be checking people in until 12.30 pm. Now I’ve flown a lot and at many airports you can check in for an international flight at any time that day. How hard is it to just have even one person catering for early check ins?

Then around midday the check in staff appear. They chat to each other for a while, and then they go sit behind their desks. But because it is not 12.30 we still can not check in. Yep you had Air NZ staff sitting there behind their desks doing nothing at all, while a large queue is waiting in line frustrated. And the magically at 12.30 we are allowed to approach them.

Why in Gods name would they not just start checking people in, the moment staff are ready?

I don’t blame any of the staff. They are following orders. But someone in Air NZ management needs to get a culture change – don’t force people to queue up, when you actually have staff ready and able to work. They could have easily started check in 20 minutes earlier.

UPDATE; Consensus from the comments is Air NZ not to blame, as Thai would have contracted them for a start time, and they may not even be able to access the computer system earlier. Fair enough. My complaint to Air NZ then becomes a request – can they pass feedback onto Thai that by the three hour mark there are over a score of passengers already waiting to check in, and contracting Air NZ to have even one staff member start earlier would increase customer satisfaction!

Computerworld has an e-mail from Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe to his staff:

Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe has lashed out at IBM in an internal email about yesterday’s mainframe crash that crippled services and disrupted thousands of passengers.

“In my 30-year working career, I am struggling to recall a time where I have seen a supplier so slow to react to a catastrophic system failure such as this and so unwilling to accept responsibility and apologise to its client and its client’s customers,” he says.

“We were left high and dry and this is simply unacceptable. My expectations of IBM were far higher than the amateur results that were delivered yesterday, and I have been left with no option but to ask the IT team to review the full range of options available to us to ensure we have an IT supplier whom we have confidence in and one who understands and is fully committed to our business and the needs of our customers”. …

Air New Zealand outsourced its mainframe to IBM in 1997. Four years later, it also outsourced its mid-range systems to IBM.

The outage was caused by a back-up generator suffering a power failure during a scheduled maintenance check at IBM’s Newton datacentre in Auckland on Sunday morning.

The systems were out for between four and six hours and that is a very long period for an outage.

An IT company I am on the board of has a contractual target of keeping total monthly outages to under 0.1%, or less than 43 minutes per month.

It will be interesting to see what emerges from the meeting between Air NZ and IBM.

Just saw this ad on Stuff. Very very funny. Is also on a large billboard in Wellington.

Quite ballsy of Air New Zealand considering they are 85% owned by the Government, but good to see that doesn’t hold back their advertising department.

The SST reports:

Air New Zealand’s decision to parade its staff in nothing but body paint has sparked calls for a cover-up.

While the airline’s television advertisement showing airline ground staff and cabin crew servicing the aircraft and passengers in only painted-on uniforms has been a hit on YouTube, it is causing offence in some quarters.

New Zealand’s advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority, has received a complaint about the advertisement from a viewer concerned that it was airing on TV at a time when children were watching with their parents.

Really don’t some people have better things to do than complain about ads.

Meanwhile the new Air New Zealand safety demonstration is over four million views on You Tube.

I can’t recall a more successful advertising concept in recent times.

Already viewed more than 250,000 times. Pretty good.

The EPMU has said Air NZ strike attendants are striking over their poverty wages.

Air NZ has said the cabin crew could earn between $40,000 and $60,000 per annum for just 30 hours of week a work.

If Air NZ is correct, then the EPMU is saying a wage of up to $38.35 per hour is a “poverty” wage.

The 4.5% pay increase offered has been rejected as it does not meet the EPMU’s demands of a 26% increase in salaries and 70% in allowances. So they are striking over Easter – the time designed to cause maximum hassles for passengers.

Air NZ is doing well out of me this week.

I flew up to Auckland on Friday (for Foo Camp in Warkworth – will blog on soonish) and back to Wellington on Sunday. Then up to Auckland this morning for a couple of InternetNZ meetings with DIA and a members consultation meeting.

On the 7 am flight Thursday back to Auckland for a company board meeting, and then flying back to Auckland on Friday morning, staying up until Wednesday for various events.

Three flights within seven days is silly, but no avoiding it as have had to be back in Wellington between each trip.

At least I should keep my air points status!

Poneke, a dedicated transport wonk, says the initial details of the Air NZ Airbus crash are so disturbing that he recommends people avoid travelling on any Airbus model until they are sorted:

This is, as I said, deeply disturbing. Until this issue is fully sorted out and the computer issues resolved, I will not be going on any Airbus model again and will be advising everyone I know to follow suit. And I say this as someone who has always argued that flying in large passenger jets is incredibly safe. My faith in Airbuses is not that positive any longer.

Air NZ have done a very cute animated xmas tale. It lightly makes fun of the carbon police

On Wednesday last week, I had a very enjoyable day in Hawke’s Bay as a guest of the Air New Zealand Environmental Trust.

The Trust was set up by Air NZ, who gave it an initial donation. Passengers can also donate to the trust here, to offset the environmental impact of their flights. And yes our flights to Napier were offset!

The Trust invited several bloggers along, being very open about the fact they wanted to increase awareness of what they do.

There were three other bloggers there. Matthew and Waveney who are trying to live wastefree for an entire year. They talk about the day on their blog.

Carlin Archer from Ecobob was the other blogger, and he talks about the day here. He has the best collection of photos.

The highlight for me was Ruud Kleinpaste – the Bugman. His enthusiasm for biodiversity was infectious. He had fun showing off his katipo and his wetas.

So why was I there, amongst all these dedicated environmentalists? I certainly don’t walk the walk like they do. But I guess in someway I may be like the average Kiwi in that I do a bit – I do recycle most of the the rubbish, I use eco-friendly lightbulbs, I absolutely adore the outdoors, support the World Wildlife Fund through a monthly donation etc., and use public transport almost daily.

We spent the day at Greg and Rachel’s Mangarara Family Farm. This is the view from the House – their own private lake! Horseshoe Lake is a 30ha wildlife sanctuary on the farm.

The overall farm is 300 hectares and their aim is to restore as much of the original ecosystem as possible, so they are planing native forests and converting it to a sustainable beef and sheep station. The forests will also act as carbon sinks to help with offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a triple win with more native forest, a more sustainable farm and lower net carbon emissions for NZ.

The Air NZ Trust’s first project is a conservation programme involving more than 100 acres on Mangarara Station. It will financially contribute to the purchase and planting of 85,000 trees over the next three years.

It’s am ambitious challenge, especially as there has been no rain since mid August! So they took advantage of our presence to have us help water some of the saplings, using lake water.

We rode on the back of some sturdy farm vehicles to an existing area of native forest. For several kms there are plain fields only, and suddenly this little patch of wonderful greenery. It even has a small little bach out there, making it an ideal hideaway. We nailed some bamboo tubes (known as weta motels) to some of the trees, as they help attract wetas, which form an important part of the ecosystem. I got bitten by a weta when I was seven, so I had to overcome my natural genocidal instncts towards them

I really enjoyed the day learning more about the work of the trust at Mangarara, and meeting a lovely group of people. We have one of the greenest countries on Earth, but it will only stay that way people making a commitment to it.

Very sad news emerging that there were five of the seven people on board the Air New Zealand A320 which crashed in the Mediterranean today were Kiwis. The plane was being operated by the German XL Airways who had leased it for the last two years.

By coincidence it is 29 years to the day since the Erebus crash.

The dead Kiwis (the authorities say no survivors are expected) are an Air NZ pilot, three engineers and a CAA Inspector.

It seems the air craft just fell out of the sky and dropped 300 metres out of the sjy into the sea, and sank to 45 metres.

My thoughts and condolences go out to Air NZ and CAA staff, plus friends and families of the five Kiwis. Also to the families of the German pilots who also perished.

Fran O’Sullivan points out that the value of the Government’s stake in Air NZ is now only $912 million – less than the $1.034 billion the Government paid for its 76% stake, including a later rights issue.

The share price is now only $1.14 and was $3.12 a year ago. A sensible shareholder would have looked to sell down some of its stake to realise a profit on the purchase. But hey when you get to spend other people’s money you don’t worry about that so much.

Does anyone want to argue that 76% is the right stake for the Crown to own, instead of say 51%?

If we had sold 25% at the peak, then the $840 received would have almost covered cost of the remaining 51%.

So the 76% stake is now $1.6 billion less than a year ago. And add on the $1.5 billion going on Dr Cullen’s trains and you see where all the money is going.

The Herald have reported that the Labour Department says Air NZ is not breaking the law by paying Shanghai based staff less than the minimum wage on international flights.

The legal minimum wage is $12 an hour but the Labour department report said it was not applicable to Air NZ as “it would appear Chinese employment law applied to the agreement between Air New Zealand and the Chinese Air crew”.

But not quite that clear:

However, in a statement last night the Department of Labour corrected “an assertion” in a media release from Air New Zealand on the issue.

The statement was in response to a release from the airline that stated that the department had found that Chinese law applied to the agreement between Air New Zealand and the Chinese cabin crew.

“What we said in our briefing to Labour Minister Trevor Mallard was that “it would appear that Chinese employment law applied”, workplace deputy secretary Andrew Annakin said.

“This is an important point of difference, as the department cannot definitively determine what employment law applies in a particular factual situation, particularly outside New Zealand.”

It would be a very interesting test case if taken to court. If the staff worked in China, there would be no doubt Chinese law applied. But when on an international flight, the law of the air generally tends to point to the law of the country the aircraft is registered in. However I know that flights into the US also have US Federal Law apply, so definitely not clear cut.

The Herald has a story reporting Air New Zealand’s response to the story on pay rates for Shanghai based staff on Air New Zealand flights. The Herald also rebuts some of the responses, and provides further information such as the fact one of the Chinese air stewardesses put on the Chinese rates is in fact a NZ resident.

They keep saying they are subcontracted through Fasco, but I have been sent a copy of a pay slip, and it certainly looks like they are paid directly.

The pay rate per hour seems to work out to Y25 which is NZ$4.41.

I blogged last week on the news that Air New Zealand pay only NZ$6,240 a year to flight attendants on its Shanghai route, who are Shanghai-based. This is massively lower than the NZ minimum wage.

NZPA reports on the PM’s response yesterday:

Miss Clark pointed to market rates at work, saying for instance that while Shanghai staff were paid less, those based in London would be paid more than those based in New Zealand.

Her understanding was that airlines who based crews in Shanghai did not directly employ them. They were employed through a local government agency.

Air NZ paid “substantial taxes” to the Chinese government over and above the wages paid to Chinese workers.

Could you imagine the outrage if a National PM dismissed the fact people employed by Air NZ on the flights were being paid at around one quarter the minimum wage, by referring to the “market rates”? Around 20 unions would have condemned the Government by now, and protest marches would be planned up and down the country.

This also shows one of the problems with state ownership.  Because the Govt owns 80% of Air NZ, it feels it has to defend what they have done.  If they were not state owned, I’d suspect the PM would be far more critical.

The PM relies on the fact they are not employed directly, but sub-contracted.  Is this the same PM who pushed through a law specifically to stop sub-contracting leading to reduced terms and conditions?

I have no problems with market rates determining how much people get paid based on where they live.  We already have this with salaries higher in Auckland for example. But the issue is having those “market rates” at massively below  the NZ minimum wage.

Sure the NZ minimum wage does not apply to people working in China.  But if someone from China works in NZ, then it most certainly does apply. And I am not convinced being employed by Air NZ on board an Air NZ flight is different to being employed in NZ.

Incidentially the Chinese former cabin crew member (Crystal Zeng) who gave the Herald the story, posted a comment on the former thread, pointing out that the salaries being paid by Air NZ are in fact even less than the Chinese airlines pay.

The Herald reveals that Shanghai-based flight attendants are paid just one quarter of the salary of their NZ colleagues on board Government-owned Air NZ.

For staff actually working in Shanghai at check-in desks etc, of course they will be paid at local rates. But it does seem inequitable that staff on board the actual flights, doing the exact same job, get paid such a massive difference purely based on where they live.

Of course the cost of living in China is much much less, and I suspect even NZ$6,240 a year is a top tier salary in China. But the flight attendants also spent much of their time in NZ and have NZ work permits.

The incentive this gives Air NZ must also be to use as few NZers as possible on the Shanghai routes.

It will be very interesting to see if the rhetoric of the Government translates into any action.