Foran defended the airline on Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking show this morning after revelations the national carrier's business unit, Gas Turbines, which specialises in servicing military marine engines and turbines, has been supporting the Saudi Navy.
The Green Party has criticised Air New Zealand following revelations it has been helping the Saudi Arabian military - despite the Middle Eastern nation's role in the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
Foran said he found out about the third party contract 10 days ago and took immediate action.
"There has been some suggestion that this is some type of secret deal or conspiracy - I can really assure you this isn't the case. What it is a case of however it is a case of poor judgement.
"It is also being suggested it was some sort of conspiracy at the very top of Air NZ - that is not the case. This is something I found out 10 days ago, and I can assure you we took immediate action as soon as we found out."
Foran said the initial decision on the contract was made in 2019 when former chief executive Christopher Luxon was in charge of Air New Zealand.
"I can't tell you exactly how that decision was made but I can tell you that we are now reviewing the process for making a decision like that."
Foran said historically it was a $3 million contract which was not particularly large for the airline. It was now going back through the process to see if it got to the executive sign off level.
"This is a business that has been traditionally fixing things such as engines on offshore oil rigs. And then progressively over several years has started doing work with Navvies and those include the Australian and US Navvies- that is something we continue to look at and we will make judgement calls on those."
Air New Zealand has also been accused of running from the story and taking weeks to respond to requests for comment from 1 News.
"They reached out to us and said they had some information around Saudi Arabia, they didn't provide any more details. We realised this was a piece of business done through a third party and teams within Air NZ wanted to protect the identity of those we were doing third party work with. That once again was a poor judgement. As soon as that information became available to me which was 10 days ago we took immediate action.
"It wasn't a conspiracy it was just some poor judgement as people were dealing with a third party supplier."
Foran confirmed it would not do work with Saudi Arabia again and was reviewing all its military contracts.
Green Party human rights spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman said her thoughts were with the Yemeni community who continued to suffer one of the worst atrocities in human history, including mass starvation and violence causing hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, leaving millions displaced.
New Zealanders would be heartbroken to learn of our national carrier's possible links to the Yemeni crisis.
The airline's move to cease all support of the Saudi military after the matter came to light was welcomed, she said.
"However, we as a nation have an absolute legal and moral duty to investigate, and hold to account anyone in Air New Zealand's leadership," she said.
"If those in Air New Zealand HQ were not aware of what was going on, it needs to be established how that was allowed to happen."
Amnesty International campaign director Lisa Woods told 1 News she would've expected the airline to have carried out due diligence about the human rights risks and in doing so consider what impact their services would have.
"We would be appalled if there was any company here (in New Zealand) that through their activities were contributing to human rights violations and having an adverse impact on human rights."
Grant Robertson, Air New Zealand's shareholding minister, was not aware the airline had been supporting the Saudi military until contacted about the story.
The Government owns 52% of the national airline.
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Comments
This wasn't a bad decision, it was a positive step to ensure the Air NZ business unit retain some revenue helping to keep NZer's in a job. The fact that Saudi Arabia became involved in another religious war with Iran before or after after the work was done is irrelevant.
If New Zealand is only going to do business with countries that have squeaky clean war records then we won't be trading with anyone. The US has some dodgy history, the My Lai massacre springs to mind and Australia is currently investigating possible war crimes in Afghanistan.
So it is all very well to want to be like the greens and just pretend the world is wholesome and pure or we can support New Zealand jobs and be a bit more pragmatic.
This was a bad decision.
It was bad because Air NZ is 51% owned by the NZ govt. As such the company should not be entering business deals with another govt which is at war, which assassinates journalists, which violently subjugates 50% of its population, without first getting clearance from the govt.
The issue is about forging ahead in a deal which clearly needed govt input. To deny this is foolishness. If Air NZ was wholly privately owned I would agree with comments above, but they are not.
Air NZ needs to front up with the truth of where and by whom this atrocious decision was made.
So do you suggest NZ stop trading with China, the US, Australia and Russia? Oh yeah lets not forget Japan, Vietnam and all the rest who have done bad deeds? The issue of government part ownership is simply incorrect, most of NZ's large business have lent on government at some time.
Everyone involved must go. This endangers every Air New Zealand passenger by making the airline a legitimate target.
In response to Keithmcc comment on 10 Feb, above.
No I'm not suggesting that, in a free market NZ companies can trade with whom they please, whether they have leaned on the govt for assistance or not. They can deal with their consciences or their shareholders consciences as they see fit.
However, Air NZ is different. They are majority owned by the govt, not part owned, majority owned. Despite your assertion to the contrary, that does make a difference. Air NZ agrees. The prompt action to cancel the contract makes that clear and their investigation to find out how it happened just backs that up.
You appear to be the only one holding out, saying there is no problem. It's alright, this is a safe environment, you can admit that you made a mistake and that you have learned something new.