Good news for some travellers now that Air New Zealand $29 Night rider fares are to be reintroduced and even extended to some provincial regions. Unfortunately it seems Hawke's Bay is not included. This region always seems to miss out on meaningful improvements to air services and reductions in airfares. Airfares here are excessive and typically it is cheaper to fly more than 1000km to Dunedin and Queenstown than the just over 300km from Auckland to Hawke's Bay.
Over the holiday period, I endured the inconvenience of this issue first hand and I suspect this experience is fairly typical. I received about a month's warning of visitors planning to arrive in Auckland from the UK, with a request that I arrange connecting domestic travel. The plan was to use Hawke's Bay as a base to explore other parts of the North Island, but the only suitable flight to Hawke's Bay was to cost an outrageous $269 one way, each. Palmerston North and Wanganui were no better, but Wellington was only $79 ($45 with Jetstar) and Rotorua $89. Interestingly, Christchurch was only $179, and Dunedin $169.
So rather than travelling direct to Hawke's Bay, the visitors chose to instead start in Rotorua. The problem was repeated when trying to arrange return flights and, with fares still in excess of $200, they further reduced their stay in Hawke's Bay and decided again to use Rotorua as a base. Just how much Hawke's Bay missed out on is uncertain, but they were spending up to $1000 a day, suggesting a significant loss to this area.
This, of course, is just a continuation of Air New Zealand's exploitation of Hawke's Bay. It's normal behaviour for monopolies to exploit a lack of competition but that does not make it right. The airline can continue these practices only because Hawke's Bay's leaders appear disinterested in stopping this outrageous situation. Perhaps this is because their own travel is being paid for by taxpayers and ratepayers, or perhaps there are other motives such as the possibility of a seat on the airline's board.
Government, and not just the current administration, also seems totally disinterested, despite owning over half the airline shares. Perhaps this easy money makes doing nothing more appealing than taking action. Strange because competition has been forced on many areas in the economy including electricity, telecommunications, and education just to name a few. All we are told in the interests of a better performing economy.
