Today, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister\u2019s office said Luxon was speaking on behalf of taxpayers, the majority shareholder in Air New Zealand.<\/p>\n
They said the PM would be expected to reflect taxpayer interests.<\/p>\n
Air New Zealand in 2015 decided to buy Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1100G-JM engines for its new Airbus narrowbody fleet, while Luxon was chief executive.<\/p>\n
The airline\u2019s other engine problems had been with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000s Air New Zealand used on Boeing 787 Dreamliners.<\/p>\n
That decision to use the Trent 1000s was made at least as far back as 2004, then again in July 2009, when Fyfe was chief executive.<\/p>\n
The GEnx-1B (General Electric) was an alternative engine.<\/p>\n
The choice of Rolls-Royce instead of GE became an irritant for Luxon\u2019s successor Foran.<\/p>\n
Foran last year told the Herald that he was glad the airline chose GE engines instead of the Trents for its new Dreamliners<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rolls-Royce at the time said the engine issues were the highest priority for its civil aerospace division and it had a Trent 1000 task force working hard to resolve the problems.<\/p>\n Public relations specialist Trish Sherson told Ryan Bridge TODAY Luxon\u2019s recent comments seemed like \u201ca punching-down on Air New Zealand\u201d.<\/p>\n She said Fyfe had taken ownership for one of the problems that had beleaguered the airline.<\/p>\n Former Labour Party leader Phil Goff today suggested that Luxon\u2019s comments on the airline were unfair.<\/p>\n \u201cYou slam everybody else … people who live in glass houses shouldn\u2019t throw stones,\u201d Goff told the programme.<\/p>\n \u201cHe shouldn\u2019t be talking his organisation down.\u201d<\/p>\n Air NZ in its annual report on Friday said it had worked with Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney to expedite the recovery of engines. <\/p>\n \u201cWe now expect no more than one of our widebody and up to two narrowbody jets to be grounded due to these multi-year engine issues in 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n Ravishankar in June told the Herald the airline\u2019s relationship with Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney had improved<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the 787s already in the fleet at the time, he said: \u201cWe only run Trent 1000s and so it\u2019s a big deal for us when that engine has been problematic since 2017 and still hasn\u2019t been fixed\u201d.<\/p>\nRob Fyfe has suggested Christopher Luxon (inset) should not have put the boot into Air New Zealand after the airline’s $242m loss. Photos \/ Doug Sherring, Corey Fleming<\/p>\n