Air NZ 'wrong airline to support'

There is some justification for local authorities underwriting an airline to guarantee transtasman flights through Dunedin, Kiwi Air founder Ewan Wilson says.

But he says Air New Zealand is not the right airline to support.

Last week, Air NZ chief executive Rob Fyfe said Dunedin should follow Rotorua's example and make a financial contribution to help ensure a viable year-round transtasman services for passengers here.

Given the economic benefit to the Otago economy of Australian tourists holidaying and spending locally, some local authority assistance with airline costs or marketing might be a justifiable expense, Mr Wilson said during a visit to Dunedin yesterday.

"An element of what Rob Fyfe is saying is true. It is just that Air NZ is the wrong airline to support. It has zero domestic feed flights in Australia, whereas Pacific Blue has a huge domestic network. If underwriting was seen as an option, surely Dunedin would be knocking on Pacific Blue's door."

Mr Fyfe was "arrogant" to seek community support, he said, when Air NZ had chosen to concentrate its transtasman flights on Queenstown airport rather than Dunedin.

Mr Wilson said Dunedin had been a profitable centre for Kiwi Air and he believed it could be for Air NZ.

Dunedin could support two Brisbane flights a week year-round, as well as some Melbourne flights.

It is perhaps not surprising Mr Wilson favours Pacific Blue over Air NZ - his own experiences with the company have been bitter.

The John McGlashan-educated pilot and entrepreneur was a fresh-faced 28-year-old when he and two others launched the Kiwi Air transtasman charter airline in 1994.

Offering a service out of Hamilton, and later out of other regional airports including Dunedin, it quickly caught the public's imagination and support because of its cheap fares.

Air NZ spent an estimated $30 million establishing and propping up its low-cost transtasman regional service Freedom Air in direct competition to Kiwi Air, a move which caused Kiwi Air's spectacular demise in 1996 with debts which Mr Wilson yesterday put at $3.9 million and which others have estimated at $5 million.

It also left him with a criminal record.

He was convicted of four counts of fraud relating to disclosures he made over his personal financial situation when applying for a loan for Kiwi Air in 1995 and sentenced to three months' periodic detention.

But that was then, and this is now.

Mr Wilson (43) has lived in five countries outside New Zealand in the years since Kiwi Air, has worked as an aviation consultant, as a pilot with a Turkish airline, and as chief executive of Norfolk Island's only aviation company.

In 2004, he spent many months helping rebuild homes in Sri Lanka damaged by the Boxing Day tsunami.

He has been a Hamilton city councillor and a member of the Waikato District Health Board.

This year, he and his wife Monique set up a company escorting travel tours, and he has just published a book about his life after Kiwi Air called Help, My Plane's On Fire.

"I'm doing everything I love doing. Life doesn't get much getter than this."

New Zealanders had been forgiving about his past, he said.

"People seem to accept that you are allowed to trip up, pay the penance, and move on."

- allison.rudd@odt.co.nz