No other option than job cuts, says Norris

Former Air New Zealand chief executive Ralph Norris says he does not believe the airline has any option other than to send overseas all the heavy engineering work for its long-haul jets.

Mr Norris, who joined the Commonwealth Bank of Australia as chief executive a month ago, told the Herald from Sydney last night he was satisfied his old management team had done everything to ensure it had made the right decision.

"People are obviously reluctant to make people redundant, so you need to do everything you can to make sure you have turned over every stone."

He denied that he or his successor, Rob Fyfe, lacked appreciation of the engineering division.

But he said it had been unable to overcome New Zealand's remoteness to compete against large-scale overseas maintenance units sufficiently to ensure the airline was able to offer the lowest possible fares demanded by passengers.

Mr Norris said the review was driven by airline ventures group general manager Craig Sinclair, who is in charge of engineering but commissioned a second set of consultants after appointing a new engineering management team 10 months ago.