KEY POINTS:
A dog-fight for control of the Great Barrier skies has resulted in an air operator being banned from using a name confusingly similar to a rival's.
Justice Helen Winkelmann has ruled that Great Barrier Air must stop using its name in any advertising or promotional material until a court case is settled.
Issuing the injunction in the High Court at Auckland, the judge agreed with Great Barrier Air's competitor, Great Barrier Airlines Flight Operations Ltd, that travellers and tourists were likely to confuse the two.
"The names Great Barrier Air and Great Barrier Airlines are so close that confusion is inevitable."
Pending the outcome of the case at trial, Great Barrier Air's telephone lines are now being independently monitored to ensure that anyone seeking its rival's operation is directed to the correct business.
Great Barrier Airlines director Mark Roberts yesterday said the decision made sense on what was a competitive but static market for flights between Auckland and Great Barrier Island.
Mr Roberts said his company had been operating flights to the island since 1983.
It started legal proceedings after Mountain Air rebranded itself as Great Barrier Air in the Yellow Pages.
"It has taken three months to get the injunction and we believe in that time we have lost business," Mr Roberts said.
Keith McKenzie, of Great Barrier Air, said the company won the first case that had been taken to appeal and there was still a substantive hearing.
He did not want to comment while the matter was still before the courts.
While the current dispute has centred on the name Great Barrier Air, both sides are disputing the rights to the Great Barrier Xpress name.
Great Barrier Air was incorporated in 2006 by Mr McKenzie, one of the owners and directors of Commercial Helicopters, which provides flights to Great Barrier under the names Gt Barrier Xpress-Mountain Air or just Mountain Air.
Justice Winkelmann said that in 1998, Commercial Helicopters began flying to the island when it entered into an arrangement with Great Barrier Airlines to provide services between the island and Auckland.
This happened after the Civil Aviation Authority suspended Great Barrier Airlines' licence.
When the service was no longer required, Commercial Helicopters continued to fly to Great Barrier under the name Great Barrier Xpress.
Great Barriers Airlines claims it owns the name Great Barrier Xpress and Express, having in the 1990s purchased the intellectual property arising from the Great Barrier operation of Air National, which included the names Great Barrier Xpress and Great Barrier Express.
In the Yellow pages, Great Barrier Airlines had been listed first, followed by Great Barrier Xpress, which also had a lower listing, Mountain Air.
Then in 2002 at the insistence of Great Barrier Airlines, Yellow Pages switched Great Barrier Xpress from Commercial Helicopters' listing to its competitor's telephone number.
Mr McKenzie said that as a result, business had dropped 10 to 15 per cent.
As a counter-measure, Mr McKenzie set up Great Barrier Air, which was not active, did not trade and had no assets.
- Bernard Orsman
