Airways trio cost $300,000

By JAMES GARDINER

Part of Airways New Zealand's bill for its unsuccessful bid to take over British air traffic control has topped $300,000.

This sum is for the travel and accommodation of three executives sent to live and work in London.

The state-owned corporation estimated in February that the total cost of its involvement in a consortium including Lockheed Martin of the United States would be about $2 million.

The potential financial return, had the consortium's bid been successful, was estimated at up to $70 million.

Instead, its three top executives returned to New Zealand in March, after spending most of their time for more than a year working on the bid and planning how they would run Britain's national traffic system themselves.

The cost has finally been made public after a series of requests under the Official Information Act and intervention by the Office of the Ombudsmen.

The corporation also paid a further $8449.70 to send a Christchurch newspaper reporter to Washington DC to write a story headed "Masters of the air" about its international expansion plans.

The Weekend Herald first lodged a request for the costs involved in the British venture nine months ago. That followed allegations in Parliament by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters that the executives and then-chairman of the corporation, John Maasland, stood to gain personally from financial incentives or a directorship if the bid succeeded - claims that were strenuously denied by the corporation and not substantiated after an inquiry by the Auditor-General.

The corporation failed to respond to the Herald in the time allowed under the act and Chief Ombudsman Sir Brian Elwood launched an investigation at the end of November.

A month later, he reported that he had still not received any reply from the corporation.

In January this year, the corporation supplied the information sought - the costs of air fares, accommodation and other expenses for the period from May 1999 to May last year. Then it sent the Herald a bill for $3465, saying it had taken 55 hours to assemble the information.

The demand for the money was withdrawn four months later after Sir Brian began an investigation into whether it was fair and reasonable to impose such a charge.

At that stage a fresh request was lodged for updated information on the expenses because more than a year had elapsed since the period the original information covered.

Most of the money was spent on chief executive Craig Sinclair.

From May 1999 until March this year Mr Sinclair racked up air fares totalling $91,823, accommodation costs of $27,866 and other expenses of $9350 for things like taxis, trains and meals.

International business general manager Paul Woodbury's bills totalled $92,742 for air fares, $27,355 for accommodation and $14,706 for "other" expenses.

Group manager finance John Bole's costs were $36,083 for air fares, $30,996 for accommodation, and $6825 for "other" expenses.

On top of these expenses of $297,434, a further $29,807 was spent over the 22 months on travel by the trio to the United States and Canada.

In May, the corporation announced it and Lockheed had been successful in a bid to build a $480 million air traffic control system for the United States Government along with Adacel Technologies of Australia.

Four months earlier, it spent $6784.70 on business-class air fares and $1665 on accommodation to send Christchurch Press reporter Colin Espiner to Washington for three days to meet Lockheed Martin staff and management.

* The corporation said it would charge the Herald $336 plus GST for supplying the updated information for this report - a charge that has been accepted.

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