{"id":535905,"date":"2026-07-20T23:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T23:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/535905\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T23:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T23:20:10","slug":"fuel-crisis-air-chathams-reinstates-some-whanganui-flights-amid-ongoing-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/535905\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel crisis: Air Chathams reinstates some Whanganui flights amid ongoing uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emeny said fuel still cost about 20c per litre more than it did in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m expecting there will be another increase next month, maybe 5% to 10%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a tinderbox over there [Iran]. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who seems to know something is predicting the middle of next year before there\u2019ll be any normality, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re forecasting on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renewed tensions involving Iran earlier this month<\/a> have added to uncertainty in global fuel markets.<\/p>\n

Emeny said a $20 base surcharge per flight segment, introduced in March<\/a>, was still in place. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe certainly considered [removing it] and if it wasn\u2019t for this latest round of events, we would have looked to ease it back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is it hasn\u2019t been very effective anyway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom March onwards, we saw such a softening of demand and people were choosing not to travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DuaneDuane Emeny says he expects a 5% to 10% increase in fuel prices next month.<\/p>\n

A Whanganui Airport update report for April 1 to June 30 said there were 9279 passengers through the terminal over that period, a 23.7% drop on 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bloody tough out there,\u201d Emeny said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMargins are thin at the best of times, and then you have something like this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the only positive to come from the fuel crisis was an \u201celevated conversation\u201d about regional aviation, especially in Australia.<\/p>\n

Emeny told the Chronicle in April<\/a> that the Western Australian Government had pledged $122m to its regional aviation sector through to 2031.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be able to quantify the value of these regional air links and reframe it,\u201d he said this week. <\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of looking at it as individual private businesses doing their thing, what\u2019s the value to New Zealand Inc in having those connections?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, what\u2019s the loss if you don\u2019t have them?\u201d<\/p>\n

The 10-year anniversary of Air Chathams<\/a> entering the Whanganui market was coming up, and he would be in the city to meet with the business community, Emeny said.<\/p>\n

The airline\u2019s first flight touched down on August 1, 2016, shortly after Air New Zealand pulled its Whanganui service<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure a Christchurch route will be top of mind, and there\u2019ll be a lot of questions about basing Air Chathams in Whanganui.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be nice to get down there and get some face-to-face time and feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emeny said fuel still cost about 20c per litre more than it did in February. \u201cI\u2019m expecting there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[68,534,51,5432,11559,138,59962,537,6562,2678,111,139,69,6379,37486,264157,10715,544,13983,5619,1883],"class_list":["post-535905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-air","tag-amid","tag-auckland","tag-between","tag-bloody","tag-business","tag-chathams","tag-crisis","tag-flights","tag-fuel","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ongoing","tag-reinstated","tag-reinstates","tag-remains","tag-some","tag-tough","tag-uncertainty","tag-whanganui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535905","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=535905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}