COMMENT:
Not great news for the regions yesterday with this Jetstar pull out.
But apart from lack of choice and inconvenience for regional passengers, what else does it mean?
An inevitable price hike on Air NZ flights is coming surely? Regional passengers should rightly be worried. The provinces never get a great run on airlines: they come, they dabble, they go. It's become a familiar pattern.
But champion of the regions Shane Jones says not if he has anything to do with it - he'll watching Air NZ closely. I guess that's an early shot across the bow for whoever the new CEO is.
Jones has warned Air NZ not to use this as an opportunity to "gouge" people, but aside from an initial PR flurry of offering discounted fares to affected Jetstar passengers, you get the feeling Air NZ will be creeping those prices up any day now.
But should we be surprised that Jetstar's bailing out?
It's been losing money and its reputation hasn't been great. It has a well-known nickname which I won't repeat here that starts with "Sh" and ends in "Star".
Jetstar was often the subject of news headlines for delayed and cancelled flights, poor service, and chaotic airport practises. I don't know that it was any worse than Air NZ necessarily, but it seemed to unfortunately garner a lot of bad press.
They did offer cheap flights though, an alternative service to the national carrier, and help keep Air NZ's flights competitively priced - for that they will be missed.
Jetstar airline blames weakening demand and fuel prices for the withdrawal. There'll be other reasons like capacity to grow and whether or not the regions are even that important to them if they're not making any money.
But for all the players who've tried to take on Air NZ in the regions, none of them seem to go the distance. Even Air NZ has had to cut some regional services.
You have to give them credit, they've by and large hung in there and have served the regions better than anyone else.
So for all the people bemoaning the loss of Jetstar, the hard reality is not enough people used it.
The onus now is on Air NZ to do the right thing, to hang in there - and to not gouge passengers who use them.
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