Talks offer little hope for flights

A monitor announces cancelled flights at Auckland Airport yesterday. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Air New Zealand intends meeting striking flight attendants today but says it is unable to offer hope to 15,000 disrupted passengers that any cancelled flights will be restored.

The airline's international general manager, Ed Sims, said last night that the talks would deal with "what life looks like after July 25" rather than coaxing unionists to call off strikes.

"We can't simply change our contingency plans," he said of the airline's preparation for a wave of three 48-hour strikes by about 1000 long-haul flight attendants, the first of which ends tonight. The next will follow in quick succession at midnight tomorrow.

The third strike will end at midnight Monday.

Dozens of passengers arrived at Auckland Airport yesterday for flights that they were unaware had been cancelled, despite the airline's efforts to reach them.

Air NZ said it had made more than 12,000 calls to passengers since the middle of last week, trying to notify them of 85 cancelled international flights and to offer alternative travel arrangements.

But it had trouble contacting some overseas visitors moving between hotels.

Surinder Kaur was one of up to 70 passengers who turned up at the airport yesterday morning, unaware of any trouble.

She was supposed to fly from Auckland to Singapore and have a three-hour stopover before continuing to India.

Instead, her flight was cancelled, and she was left facing a 22-hour wait in Singapore on a re-booked flight. Mrs Kaur, 50, is expected to arrive in Mumbai more than 16 hours late.

Her daughter, Mandeep Aujla, said the family did not learn about the cancellation until they arrived at the airport. Mrs Aujla accepted that the airline, which had organised accommodation for her mother in Singapore, was doing its best, but she said: "We plan never to fly Air NZ again because of the trouble."

Another casualty of the pay dispute between the airline and the Flight Attendants and Related Services Association was Kuwait's defeated Davis Cup tennis team.

Weary team members were also hoping to fly to Singapore on the first leg of a long flight home.

The airline cancelled 15 flights yesterday, and a further 13 will be grounded today, mostly services to and from Asia but also some across the Tasman and the Pacific.

The airline says long-haul flight attendants in its premium section earn about $61,500 a year, plus $20,000 in tax-free allowances.

Its pay offer would increase taxable income to about $63,530 in year one.

Association industrial officer Heather Stanley said the aim of the strikes was to send a message rather than destroy the airline.

She said the parties had been close to agreement on pay but the dispute was also about "health and safety" issues such as leave and aircraft crewing levels.

Mr Sims said the airline's negotiating team were aware that if the pay deal was not settled at an acceptable level, "we will review the number of jobs across our operations".

He denied that safety would be compromised with proposed 10-member cabin crews for new Boeing 777s.

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