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Post by TS on Nov 12, 2014 21:47:47 GMT 12
Maybe it's time the railways put some affordable passenger trains back on the rails to the regions to make up for the loss of air services. Particularly to Northland where they have just cut the rail service. I don't think passenger trains ever went as far as kaitaia they only went a little past Okaihau. Plus the last passenger train to Whangarei was when Christ wore short pants. Bring on private enterprise......
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Post by ZacYates on Nov 13, 2014 8:09:14 GMT 12
Excellent, this is more like it! *reclines at his desk with a coffee*
I was just thinking "bring back NAC".
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 13, 2014 8:44:17 GMT 12
You could just about drive from Hamilton to Auckland in the time that includes waiting ,flying, getting a taxi(probably the long way round), to where you are going. Perhaps they need something like a Cessna Caravan for some of the "lesser" destinations. isc In today's Dominion Post newspaper.... • New Paraparaumu air service to start....although this is a NEW service — not sure if it is a new route (could Air2There already be flying Paraparaumu-Blenheim?).
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 13, 2014 9:48:08 GMT 12
from The Timaru Herald....Flights set to drop, but seats to soarBy SARAH JARVIS | 5:00AM - Thursday, 13 November 2014THE number of Air New Zealand flights between Timaru and Wellington is set to decrease by almost half but the number of available seats will increase by 44 percent.
The change is part of a regional revamp announced on Tuesday by Air NZ in which services for Kaitaia, Whakatane and Westport will end and subsidiary Eagle Airways will shut down.
Air NZ currently operates 22 flights from Timaru to Wellington each week using a 19-seat Beechcraft aircraft. From March 2016, the flights will drop to 12 with a 50-seat aircraft.
Air NZ chief executive Christopher Luxon said the change would increase the number of seats by 44 percent. The company expected to be able to reduce the average airfare by 15 percent “because of the better economies of scale achieved from spreading the fixed operating costs across 50 passengers as opposed to 19”.
Aoraki Development, Business and Tourism and South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce chief executive Wendy Smith said it was the news the organisations had been waiting for. “It ensures we retain and build on our ease of access to the capital.”
Both organisations had actively engaged with the airline for several years, Smith said.
“A few months ago we hosted a regional workshop with Air NZ representatives, discussing the current and future growth of the district and the need for an ongoing and reliable service to the capital,” Smith said.
South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce president Tony Howey stressed the need for businesses to use the service.
“I am confident that usage will pick up with the larger and more reliable planes.”
A larger aircraft opened up opportunities, Smith said.
“That could mean an increase in people coming in for conferences, sports or business.”
PrimePort chairman Roger Gower said it was good news the service was being retained and he would like to see the schedule work with the business community. “It would have been bigger news for us if it wasn't being kept,” he said.
Those waiting to board the 11.50am flight to Wellington yesterday were happy Timaru was not on the national carrier's chopping block.
Porirua residents Donald and Lyndel Borrie were visiting family member Grant Keeley.
It was wonderful his sister and her husband could fly into Timaru and it saved him the expense of driving to Christchurch, Keeley said.
“It saves time, money and is convenient.”
Lyndel Borrie said she enjoyed the flight but felt the cost of flying into Timaru was too expensive and would welcome cheaper airfares.
South Canterbury District Health Board chief executive Nigel Trainor, who was off to a meeting in Wellington yesterday, welcomed the news a larger aircraft would be operating in and out of Timaru. “It will be far more comfortable,” he said.www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/63145366/Flights-set-to-drop-but-seats-to-soar from The Timaru Herald....Wellington flights won't be the sameEDITORIAL | 5:00AM - Thursday, 13 November 2014OH NO, the flying pencil is to go.
I'll miss the 19-seat Beech Airliner that links us with Wellington — the banging your head on the exit door, the “cosy” confines, the ability to look through the front window as Wellington's runway ducked and dived and swayed from view.
Scared? Hell no, what fun. Even the time when everyone applauded after landing.
Hey, we're from a regional town, and the Beech plane proved it. No problem there.
Except for the too many times it was grounded for “maintenance” (although that seems to have improved of late), and those little niggles like when Eagle Air's fleet of Beechcraft was grounded two years ago following the discovery of hairline cracks in the tail of one; or the incident in 2007 when the Timaru Beech had to land belly-first in Blenheim when the wheels wouldn't go down.
But we're moving on, albeit in March 2016, and the change is being touted as a win for Timaru.
And it is ... if the alternative was to lose the service entirely.
That would have been disastrous and we can only feel for Kaitaia, Whakatane and Westport.
Instead we're to get a 50-seat plane, because of “increased demand”. And that is good news in itself, reflective of a buoyant economy driven by dairying and a port with greater links now to the outside world.
Overall there will be more seats each day, but fewer flights. So from 22 flights out a week it will be just 12. Presumably that's two each week day and one each on Saturdays and Sundays. Obviously that means there's less flexibility, and if a flight is cancelled due to weather a bigger headache.
The hope though is that fares will come down 15 percent as the airline anticipates, which is better but still makes a flight expensive.
Still, that's the cost of living in a region. We can't expect Air New Zealand to continue running such links at a loss. The standby fare option is certainly to be applauded.
The 50-seat plane perhaps also opens us up to new clients, like group bookings for sports teams or businesses.
Ultimately this is good news, but it just won't be the same flying into Wellington and not being able to look out the front window. You might not be able to beat Wellington on a good day, but it was also a lot of fun on a windy one.www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/opinion/63145334/Editorial-Wellington-flights-won-t-be-the-same
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 13, 2014 9:49:27 GMT 12
You could go back and think about competition such as Origin Pacific, and then take a look at what you have now. You choose to fly the cheapest airline, they in turn engage in a race to the bottom and then someone fails at some point leaving a monopoly. The traveling public make that decision whether they realise it or not.
An ideal "national airline" would have the best interests of the provinces at heart. It would be good for business as well as being good for the country. They would engage in reducing fares to boost passenger numbers, invest in towns and invest in developing tourism in conjunction with other travel arms, including rail and sea. Rail would be a good way of feeding the networks to some of our isolated centres from which people and tourists could then fly from/to. That in turn would increase industry in those towns, increase employment, grow populations, and boost travel further. But that has not been the case. The provinces have been used to make profit from opportunity, offering a bare minimum service to make a small profit to shut out potential competitors. Now the 19 seat 1900 has become too expensive to operate. Not enough passengers, too much cost per mile per seat. The result: routes chopped, towns and centres isolated, not even serviced by a rail network or a port.
As for the political comments, not sure how selling part of Air NZ off is to blame. They are a company with their own destiny in their hands. They have to make the best decisions for their own future, whether that includes small provinces or not is inconsequential to them. The Government happens to own a shareholding in it. A profitable airline means a better return to the shareholders. That is the only upside.
As for building new aircraft, the problem is not so much the route structure so much as the cost of operating the current fleet. There are turboprops in the 19-seat bracket which could have made profits on shorter routes. But they were generally old, out of production or did not meet Star Alliance standards (stand up cabin, toilet etc). So the B1900D was chosen, an aeroplane that was always going to be higher cost per seat per mile. But as there are no new options, the remaining Air NZ fleet of Q300s and ATR72s can't make money on those short routes for the same reason as well as potential loads, so the routes get chopped.
I agree that a real opportunity to enhance our rail systems exists. Freight and passengers traveling by rail could alleviate some of the road traffic, and it should be cheaper than flying. If time is a factor then by all means fly in a Cessna Caravan or an Apache, but you now may not get all that you expected from your air fare.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 13, 2014 9:50:11 GMT 12
Now why do I get an idea that the author of today's Timaru Herald editorial is an IDIOT who is under the delusional impression that Metroliners are still flying the Timaru-Wellington route?
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 13, 2014 9:53:19 GMT 12
I see the usual politician suspects (and one in particular) are spouting SPIN, while carefully distancing themselves from the fact that they made the decision to flog-off government-owned Air NZ shares to investors who no doubt now want their increased pound of flesh in the form of higher dividends, resulting in the sorts of cuts which are occurring, throwing provincial areas of NZ to the dogs. If you had a rail route that was losing a million dollars a month would you expect it to continue? Do you really think that they would continue even under Government ownership? It's the resul tof what I discussed in my post above. I don't see the political connection. Yet again.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 13, 2014 10:08:01 GMT 12
Virtually every public transport route in Auckland and Wellington and Christchurch (and in many other places throughout the country) is SUBSIDISED.
You should hear Tom Williams (the director of Wings Over Warirapa) going on about what they get charged for the airshow trains on a per-seat basis compared with the per seat fare on the scheduled MetLink services between Wairarapa and Wellington which are subsidised, just like virtually every other commuter service throughout the country.
And I guarantee virtually every rural road serving only a handful of farms runs at a loss. Should we “pull-the-plug” on those?
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Post by madmac on Nov 13, 2014 11:09:58 GMT 12
About 2006 - 07 I was told that Eagle made a dollar, a seat a sector with something like 200 sectors a day, so there was never a big margin in it.
My observation would be that to make money / breakeven in that part of the market, you would have to have good leadship that is very technically capable (currently in NZ those people don't tend to advance because they keep pointing out where the boss is wrong and then being proven right) with in house 145 / 146 & 148 (maintenace design and manufacture).
I seem to recall (never have worked there) Eagle had a period, where they cut costs by employing the cheapest labour they could and flogged the aircraft maintenance wise, and that is the fastest guaranteed way to drive up underlying costs and is really hard to claw back the increased costs (not that there is any thing remotely new about that in NZ). It was not helped by the 1900D being some what poorly designed (it is something like 5 stretches from a queen air and it showed) and most of eagles examples being not quite as well built as they should have been (beech were firing people from each assembly bay as the last parts where finished), which all in all would have made them somewhat labour intensive.
As for replacements, no one has built even close to really good 19 seater yet, the 1900D burns too much gas for its payload, the SA227 (metro) is fast but needs structural refinement, a bigger rudder and slightly bigger engines, while the J32 which is built like a real airliner but is completely hamstring by the lack of cargo space and the lack of a separate cargo door (nothing a couple of fuse plugs wouldn't fix), its also a bit slow.
In terms of replacements it is interesting to note that there is some thing like 70 metros in oz. I hear that M7 are looking at putting the SA227 back into production with minimum changes, which is a bit disappointing as it is a good frame, just it has lots of crap detail design on it that would take that much to fit really).
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Post by ErrolC on Nov 13, 2014 12:51:32 GMT 12
I think subsidies should be a transparent as practical. e.g. if air services of a particular frequency are politically desired, then the subsidy should be available for tender (with the actual outcomes measured against the tender submission). Much better than cross-subsidisation from other airline customers/investors. Good comparison vs telecomms here
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 15, 2014 7:49:00 GMT 12
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Post by shorty on Nov 15, 2014 8:32:30 GMT 12
Why on earth would that be better than buses? Trains need much larger volumes to make sense. Sent from my D5503 using proboards Having travelled extensively by train I could give you heaps of reasons, less roads required, (the rails are already there) No road rage, very rare for weather to cause accidents, no drunk drivers, no parking hassles in towns, no road rage, no employing heaps of cops to catch idiots (or revenue gather), fuel savings, low carbon emission compared with cars, no cars clobbering cyclists (or being annoyed by them),no baggage restrictions (compared with budget airlines, no stop/start progress through towns with traffic lights ets, no traffic jams (Auckland on a holiday weekend springs to mind), no annoying ratbags wanting to wash windscreens,no dangerous distractions (you can text, phone, eat, even doze while travelling. Shall I go on?
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Post by TS on Nov 15, 2014 9:25:11 GMT 12
I agree with what you say Shorty BUT, NZR will never go back to regular pax services to small towns they pulled up the tracks to make sure of that one. (really silly ). Plus they are hopeless at keeping things to a schedule. Apart from maybe freight these days? But with the dealings I had with them on that side of things 10 odd years ago it wasn't very good.
So maybe private bus companies can do better? Private enterprises seem to pee over Govt owned.....
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Post by ErrolC on Nov 15, 2014 9:28:05 GMT 12
Why on earth would that be better than buses? Trains need much larger volumes to make sense. Sent from my D5503 using proboards Having travelled extensively by train I could give you heaps of reasons, less roads required, (the rails are already there) No road rage, very rare for weather to cause accidents, no drunk drivers, no parking hassles in towns, no road rage, no employing heaps of cops to catch idiots (or revenue gather), fuel savings, low carbon emission compared with cars, no cars clobbering cyclists (or being annoyed by them),no baggage restrictions (compared with budget airlines, no stop/start progress through towns with traffic lights ets, no traffic jams (Auckland on a holiday weekend springs to mind), no annoying ratbags wanting to wash windscreens,no dangerous distractions (you can text, phone, eat, even doze while travelling. Shall I go on? You have ignored my point entirely. To be at all economic, trains require a lot more people to travel on the service. I was responding to the suggestion that the dropped air services could be 'replaced' by trains. There are simply not the several hundreds of people per day (or thousands, really) wanting to travel the routes in question. The dozens/low hundreds that do are served by buses (or car ownership/hire) at much better frequencies than a train would provide. I don't need to be lectured on the benefits of train travel, although I commute to work by car (as it is only 10min). The local station is only 4min drive away, and I use it to do things like meet my partner in Newmarket (she works in town) for a movie. I'm looking forward to the Auckland train service improving, and the bus services to be re-organised to actually connect with the trains, which will increase my PT options markedly.
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Post by Darren Masters on Nov 15, 2014 10:09:31 GMT 12
Sad news but scrapping Hamilton Auckland...Honestly why would you not drive or get the Naked Bus? By the time you check-in, wait, board, land, disembark etc etc you would have been home way before going for another option. Same applies for other routes...
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 15, 2014 10:27:54 GMT 12
You're right there Darren, if you actually want to go to the central city it's another hour or so on a bus from the Auckland Airport anyway so you're not saving any time.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 15, 2014 10:33:02 GMT 12
Errol and Bruce, you chaps work for the railways. Why can they not stick one or two passenger carriages on every one of the many freight trains that go up and down the country all day long? The freight cost could subsidise the passenger carrying and a lot more places could enjoy a rail service, surely?
NZ is so backwards when it comes to railways. Places like the UK have it nailed.
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Post by ErrolC on Nov 15, 2014 11:17:55 GMT 12
Errol and Bruce, you chaps work for the railways. Why can they not stick one or two passenger carriages on every one of the many freight trains that go up and down the country all day long? The freight cost could subsidise the passenger carrying and a lot more places could enjoy a rail service, surely? NZ is so backwards when it comes to railways. Places like the UK have it nailed. I'll pass on commenting on the ability for rail freight to subsidize anything, as I have in the past (both when I worked for Tranz Rail, and when Toll operated the rolling stock) had access to relevant financial info (which is probably still approximately correct).
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Post by suthg on Nov 15, 2014 14:23:04 GMT 12
Well why did the proposed rail pax service from Hams to Akld fail to eventuate - partly because Ham City Council did not want to support (subsidise) it because they saw it encouraged people to spend out of the district (city) rather than in it as the 2-way prices were still too high per pax c/w private car or bus travel. Also the timing of a fixed service may suit workers but not shoppers... It needs bums on seats every trip to make it happen - as they have said, even the 10,000? weekly to Wgn from Mstn is still subsidised.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 15, 2014 15:02:39 GMT 12
A note about the Wairarapa train services.
They are part of the Wellington Region public transport services provided by Greater Wellington Regional Council.
As with Auckland (where Auckland Transport own all trains, although not locomotives, which they lease from KiwiRail), Greater Wellington Regional Council owns all of the trains (electric multiple units, both Matangi and Ganz sets; and the Wairarapa services carriages). In the case of both Auckland Transport and GWRC, they contract with bus and ferry companies to provide the bus and ferry components of the public transport networks. The subsidies are roughly 50-50 split between ratepayers and taxpayers in both Auckland and Wellington. The taxpayer component of the subsidies are provided through Land Transport New Zealand.
The Capital Connection train between Palmerston North and Wellington is a non-subsidised long-distance passenger train. It is NOT part of the GWRC public transport network and is instead part of KiwiRail Scenic Journeys (formerly Tranz Scenic).
In all other parts of NZ where public transport services are provided by regional councils, those services are supplied by bus companies under contract to the relevant regional council in each area.
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