In a stinging newsletter to the chamber's 1500 member-businesses this week, chief executive John Christie rounded on the Government-owned national carrier, saying the recent cancellation of southern flights had "done nothing" to promote regional New Zealand as a place to run a business and was also detrimental to tourism.
"Don't abuse your position. We are not stupid," Mr Christie said.
While continuing to encourage Air New Zealand to reinstate flights, Mr Christie said the chamber would also work to find an alternative airline to service Dunedin.
Air New Zealand took over the flights of its subsidiary Freedom Air last year, and last month, amid an uproar from the Dunedin City Council, Otago University and businesses, said it was cutting its transtasman flights from Dunedin International Airport.
No services would fly to or from the airport for a third of the year.
Mr Christie said it was "insulting" that Air New Zealand had not discussed any options with the chamber or businesses before its announcement last month, as the chamber had, through Project Gateway, been in long-running discussions with Air New Zealand on southern services.
He said Air New Zealand had left Dunedin in a quandary by providing "just enough flights, but not enough to make a real go of it".
"It becomes very difficult to convince overseas clients to deal with our businesses."
Last month, Air New Zealand Tasman Pacific Airline general manager Glen Sowry said he hoped customers, especially business people, could understand it was not viable to run half-empty planes and that during the past year, the average passenger load Dunedin-Australia was 50%-60% and was "not sustainable".
However, Mr Christie claimed regional routes were "very profitable", because they had "good loadings" and passengers paid a premium to Air New Zealand.
"It has started to look as though we are unimportant to Air New Zealand. We already pay a premium on fares because there is no competition," he said.
While the Government talked about economic growth, it seemed any second-tier destination had to pay a premium for Air New Zealand services, he said.
