Air NZOn-Time Performance Reporting ‘Well Overdue"

Air New Zealand On-Time Performance Reporting ‘Well Overdue’

PACIFIC BLUE JULY OTP AT 91.4%

Wednesday 12 August 2009: Pacific Blue says Air New Zealand’s announcement that it will begin reporting domestic on-time performance is well overdue and that the carrier should reveal the figures for the year-to-date, not just one month.

“Air New Zealand has once again been forced by a competitor to be more customer focused. It happened when we launched low fares on domestic routes and now it’s happening with on-time performance reporting,” said Pacific Blue’s General Manager Commercial, Adrian Hamilton-Manns. ”But we challenge them to go further still and report all their on-time performance data since the start of 2009.”

Pacific Blue has been calling for mandatory on-time reporting for domestic airlines for some time and began publishing its own results online two months ago, with figures going back to January 2009.

Today Pacific Blue announced its latest results, noting that its domestic flights were on-time 91.4% of the time during July 2009.

The July figure brings the airline’s average on-time performance to over 91% for the first seven months of the year. During six of the seven months the airline recorded on-time performance of between 90% and 95%.

Pacific Blue said that it would be sticking to the internationally recognised airline standard of reporting on-time performance as flights departing within 15 minutes of scheduled departure times.

“Air New Zealand’s call for 10-minute reporting is typical of an airline which always arrives at the party late and then tries to change the music,” said Mr Hamilton-Manns.

“Quite frankly, Kiwis are more savvy than that and understand that the real slap in the face for domestic travellers is that it’s taken so many years, and competitive pressure, for Air New Zealand to finally start reporting it’s domestic on-time performance at all.”

Mr Hamilton-Manns said the public deserves to know how airlines are performing and Pacific Blue was looking forward to both Air New Zealand and Jetstar publishing their year-to-date performance online so that travellers can compare results for themselves.

When measuring its on-time performance Pacific Blue makes no exceptions for bad weather, air traffic control, delays from suppliers, unscheduled maintenance, consequences of previous delays or anything else.

Pacific Blue’s domestic OTP for the full year-to-date are published online at :
www.flypacificblue.com/Personal/Flightinfo/Ontimeperformance/OTPPB/index.htm

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