KEY POINTS:
Landing and take-off costs, not airline competition, are the reason for the higher price per kilometre for short flights around the country, Air New Zealand says.
In a survey of the cheapest widely available internet fares from Auckland to popular destinations, Whangarei was the most expensive at 57c/km.
Napier, Gisborne, Nelson and Blenheim - also routes which competitor Qantas did not service - rounded out the top five most expensive flights per kilometre.
Flights to Christchurch and Queenstown came out cheapest at 16c/km and Wellington the second cheapest at 24c/km.
Qantas competed on the three cheapest routes, with its price per kilometre almost identical to Air NZ's.
Air NZ group general manager short-haul airlines Norm Thompson said the similarity between his company's best price on the routes and those offered by Qantas was because of similar costs.
Mr Thompson said determining ticket prices was a complex business but shorter flights cost more per kilometre because of the fixed costs at each end.
Cruising at high altitudes was the least expensive part of flying.
"You've got the same fixed costs on leaving Auckland and arriving in Wellington as you have on Auckland-Christchurch," he said.
"But [on Auckland-Christchurch], because the bit in the middle is longer, it's not costing you as much on a cents per kilometre basis."
Mr Thompson said the airline's biggest competition on short flights was bus services and cars.
The company aimed to stimulate new travel through pricing and had introduced initiatives such as its cut-price, Grab-a-Seat airfares.
"Our challenge domestically is to get people out of their cars and flying."
A Grab-a-Seat fare, which had strictly limited availability and travel times, reduced cost per kilometre of a Whangarei flight to 27c/km.
University of Auckland department of economics professor Tim Hazledine examined the cost per kilometre of flights within New Zealand and to Australia two years ago.
Of the 1001 flights in Dr Hazledine's study, the most expensive was a Wanaka to Christchurch flight at 94c/km.
The cheapest was a Christchurch to Melbourne flight at 7c/km.
"There's a huge variation," said Dr Hazledine.
"It's partly to do with the distance itself, partly to do with the type of equipment ... but also partly to do with competition."
He agreed the take-off and landing charges were a big factor in the pricing.
"You'd expect longer flights to be cheaper on a per kilometre basis and they are."
