It really shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering I have the “how does anyone survive in this country” (New Zealand) chat with my family at least once a month, especially when they told me the price of butter these days, but it still rattled me.
So, here are the facts: On Christmas Day, my partner and I fly from London to Shanghai, then to Auckland. For two long-haul flights, we paid £398 ($933) each. As far as long-haul flights go, that’s not bad. Quite good actually, and if we break it down, basically means we paid £200 (NZD$456) per leg.
Then came the Auckland to Queenstown leg. The cheapest flight we could find that lined up with our arrival time was just over $500, which means we paid around £215 for a flight that’s one hour and 50 minutes.
To try and subsidise the cost, my partner and I thought we’d put together our Airpoints. Unfortunately, we were just a couple of points off being able to cover the mandatory 20% of the cost, so we couldn’t use them at all.
That’s fine. We sucked it up and booked the flights with a return to Auckland from Queenstown on January 19. Since it’s a Monday, we thought maybe, just maybe, it would be cheaper, and it was but it still came to $220 each. For a one-way ticket, that feels like a diabolical amount.
Globally, the Honolulu to New York route has often been cited as one of the most expensive domestic flights you can take in the world. Most days a direct flight on this route will cost several hundred dollars, but you are in the air for nearly 10 hours.
In total, we have forked out more than $1400 for two people to fly return domestically to Queenstown. Again, maybe it’s because I’m used to insanely cheap flights in Europe, but this feels like exploitation of loyalty.
The hits harder when you remember this is the same airline that has been bailed out multiple times by the government, the latest during Covid, and the same taxpayers who are now forking out small fortunes to fly within their own country.
For example, one of our friends who lives in Taranaki thought he might come to Wānaka for New Year’s Eve to see us, then saw the return flight price of more than $900 and binned that idea.
Sure, we have a small country, with few airline options, but Air New Zealand seem to be doing pretty well. They reported a net profit after tax of $126 million earlier this year. Pre-tax, that came to $189m and can only lead me to assume that the execs are patting themselves on the back for their “resilience” and “good work”.
Would it be so wild if they considered a few affordable flights for the people who kept them, and continue to keep them, alive?
Then again, everyone needs to make money, and maybe there’s some complicated economic logic that I’ll never understand. Air NZ will likely point to customer demand during the Christmas period and the high costs to run an airline, which includes fuel and expensive spare parts, as reasons for the elevated price.
Earlier this year, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she was open to a market study after repeated criticism over high fare prices by Air NZ, which the government has a 51% shareholding in. The airline’s new chief executive Nikhil Ravishankar also suggested a “situational subsidy” for some provincial routes which he believed could help keep prices in check.
What I do know is if I can fly from London to Shanghai for less than it costs to fly from Auckland to Queenstown, something feels off, and honestly, New Zealand, you deserve better than that.