Dispute forces Air NZ to cancel flights

A dispute with international flight attendants has forced Air New Zealand to cancel 85 international flights next week.

More than 1000 members of the Flight Attendants and Related Services Association (Farsa) have planned three 48-hour strikes starting at midnight on Monday, Thursday and Sunday.

Air NZ yesterday contacted most of the 14,000 international passengers the strike will affect. It has reorganised its schedule to ensure that 70 per cent of scheduled flights - including direct services between New Zealand and Los Angeles, San Francisco and London - will not be affected.

But it had to cancel 48 outgoing and 37 incoming flights from Australia, Asia and the Pacific region, after talks with the union failed to resolve the dispute over pay and conditions by Wednesday evening.

Farsa industrial officer Heather Stanley said the strike could still be avoided if the parties reached an agreement in time.

But Air New Zealand international general manager Ed Sims said the cancellations would stand regardless of meeting before Monday.

"The flight attendants and travel industry professionals are very aware of the complexity of our operations. Once we've [rescheduled], it's irreversible.

"We were absolutely explicit with the union that by 5pm [Wednesday] we had to start contacting customers to notify change of travel plans. We have an obligation to our customers."

He said the airline was happy to continue dialogue with the union.

"But unless we see an indication of moving on their last position, we see no reason or opportunity to move from our contingency plan."

The airline could only afford about $7.5 million towards the union's proposal worth $14.2 million.

"We were very disappointed not to hear from the union today. If we have a phone call tomorrow, we are happy to talk."