\u201cWe received a notification from our fuel supplier advising that, effective immediately, jet fuel is increasing by 95 cents per litre,\u201d Bacon told the Herald. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis one price rise adds over $1.1 million of cost to our operation. One issue is that the fares we have sold do not come close to covering this sort of price rise. In response to this issue, we have had to increase our fares by $10-$15 to try to start to cover this huge cost, but right now it isn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bacon said that the company is reviewing prices daily and hopes to see relief on fuel costs soon, but he is \u201cnot confident\u201d.<\/p>\n
He is calling for Government action to \u201cmaintain full operations to our remote regional communities\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need is immediate relief from some Government costs, such as Airways [NZ] charges and also CAA [Civil Aviation Authority] levies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Bacon, it\u2019s \u201cseldom the case\u201d that airlines earn a significant profit as a result of high airfare prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps long-haul foreign legacy carriers are doing well, which is mainly due to a very high passenger volume, but aviation is a notoriously difficult and expensive industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes it worse is when you are having to pay for everything, which is priced in USD, [you pay] in New Zealand dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simon Wallace, chief executive of Aviation Industry Association NZ, told the Herald fuel costs are affecting more than just commercial flights. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in the industry is affected by the fuel increases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wallace cited fuel as one of the biggest cost bases for an airline.<\/p>\n
Jet fuel prices were about US$85 ($144) to US$90 per barrel before the conflict but have surged to US$150-US$200 in recent days.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd a lot of these airlines are under a lot of pressure already,\u201d Wallace said, noting that when fuel prices eventually come down, there would be a lag before airfares do too.<\/p>\n
For travellers wary of rising costs, Wallace\u2019s advice was this: \u201cBook as soon as you can, during off-peak times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jen Staples, air and product manager for the Flight Centre Travel Group, also recommended travellers act fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those travelling over Easter, many of those trips will already have been booked and paid for well in advance. However, pricing on unsold seats can move more quickly, as airlines respond to fuel costs as well as supply and demand,\u201d Staples explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will likely be very strong demand for any available seats in the near term, which could put further upward pressure on pricing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re planning travel in the coming months, particularly over busy periods, it\u2019s worth booking sooner rather than later to secure current fares while seats are still available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Varsha Anjali is a journalist in the lifestyle team at the Herald. She is based in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe received a notification from our fuel supplier advising that, effective immediately, jet fuel is increasing by 95…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[68,63057,17622,20497,682,138,3595,11686,2678,18325,305,26098,221,4493,21325,2454,5969,111,139,69,12937,801,165,109209,9186,5977,102,80],"class_list":["post-321957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-air","tag-airfare","tag-airlines","tag-barrier","tag-being","tag-business","tag-by","tag-fares","tag-fuel","tag-grapple","tag-have","tag-heres","tag-how","tag-increased","tag-increases","tag-industry","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prices","tag-rising","tag-their","tag-threaten","tag-travellers","tag-which","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}