Air Chathams chief executive Duane Emeny said regional airlines were struggling. Photo: Sharon Brettkelly
Regional airline Air Chathams is considering cutting back services because of mounting cost pressures hitting the aviation sector.
The state-owned traffic controller Airways announced on Wednesday that it would charge commercial airlines 17.7 per cent more over the next three years.
Air Chathams chief executive Duane Emeny told Nine to Noon regional airlines were struggling.
"We fly from Auckland to Kāpiti and with the Airways provision service there with the new pricing in year one we're going to be paying $862 to Airways per sector, that's at least five passenger seats just for that one charge," he said.
"In our case the most important thing is we've got to maintain connectivity to the Chathams, they don't have a road over there, so lets just focus on that and then look at everything else we're doing and say what makes sense, what doesn't and what are we going to be doing in the long term. Sadly, the net result of that could mean further regional cutbacks."
In a statement, Airways said it consulted with customers and stakeholders on service prices every three years.
It acknowledged the ongoing challenges facing the New Zealand aviation industry post Covid-19.
In setting prices, Airways said it had balanced cost management with its obligations to provide safe, efficient and reliable air traffic control services.
Emeny said regional airlines were crucial for rural and regional links to bigger centres so people could rely on them for healthcare.
Cutbacks would be a huge shame and ultimately it would be the customers suffering, he said.
"Now you're just expected to get in your car and drive to a larger regional airport to fly a larger turboprop aircraft or jet aircraft to connect to these places," he said.
"More of the damage is actually done when the visibility of these regions - the Westports, the Whakatānes, the Kaitaias, the Mastertons- they just fall off the map because from a global perspective if you're looking to travel to New Zealand and do business and visit these places they don't exist, they don't exist on the Air New Zealand website so they do lose out as a result of that."
Emeny said his company was considering leasing planes to other operators.
"We have an aircraft right now in the Kingdom of Tonga serving that country and those people, and we're doing that because we actually spent five years operating an airline in Tonga and now we've been asked to come and help and support and someone is prepared to pay for it," he said.
"We may do more of that which means we're doing less of it in New Zealand and ultimately the losers are the regional communities that rely on our services."
Emeny said the user pays model was crushing smaller players in the industry.
"It's really serious. It would just be amazing if government and local government could come together on this and say enough is enough these things are important it's really important connected that these regional airports can be viable and maintained in some way because if you don't have airlines flying into them they will ultimately close," he said.
Sounds Air this month [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/567539/sounds-air-cut-flying-routes-as-costs-surge announced it was cutting its Blenheim to Christchurch and Christchurch to Wānaka services, having earlier stopped its services to Taupō and Westport.
Board of Airline Representatives chief executive Cath O'Brien told Nine to Noon the impact of rising costs were being felt through the entire aviation sector.
"It is more difficult for those regional airlines and I would that their suggest operating costs across their business will be a real challenge, but I do think this systematic problem we have of cost to deliver the aviation system as paid for by airlines is being felt by the larger players too. Airlines have not returned to New Zealand as they had done pre-Covid," she said.
