Kate Boyer: Air NZ Ground and In-Flight Chief Operations Officer on rebuilding trust, the increasing number of flights arriving on time
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Airline news.
How has Air New Zealand's on-time performance changed recently?
Air New Zealand's on-time performance. So what do we got? 86% last month. Analysts, OAG, they rate the airline at 84.42% for June. I don't know whether that's good or not. Seems all right to me. Kate Boyer is the Air New Zealand Chief Operations Officer for ground and in-flight and is with us. Very good morning to you.
Good morning, mate.
Are those numbers any good?
Yeah, we're pretty happy with those numbers.
What responsibilities does the Ground and In‑Flight Chief Operations Officer cover?
We've seen real improvement over the last couple of months, 89% in May, 86% in June as we head into winter. That's putting us right in the sort of top tier of network airlines in terms of performance, and that's where we want to be for our customers.
Okay, I should clear up first of all, what's your job for ground and in-flight? What part do you cover and not cover?
Yeah, I look after all the day-to-day operations of the airline. So our op center, our cabin crew, our airports, all the stuff to sort of fly day-to-day.
Okay, so of the statistics, how much of it's domestic versus international?
Yeah, our domestic performance is stronger and particularly regional. We were at 89% on the regions and we've had huge focus on that because we lost customer trust there. We were struggling to deliver reliability and performance into the regions and we put huge effort into that and turning that around. International, we still have some work to do. We're at 78% just above and we need to continue to invest in that space, particularly on the Tasman where regular business travelers are.
How much of it's on any given month in those stats? How much of it's you versus stuff beyond you?
You know, we are really focused on the stuff that we control, but we do see weather impacts. So I'll give you an example. We had 176 weather-related cancels over 48 hours in Wellington and New Plymouth the other day with those wind storms. That takes out the network to lose a hub airport. But to deliver that result, 86%, with the start of winter, we're pretty happy with that.
Oh, I was going to say, so you don't smooth out those stats with the, it was 84, but take out the weather because we couldn't control it. That's with everything. That's the whole thing.
That's absolutely everything.
Okay. Why were you having trouble domestically and why didn't you fix it sooner?
Yeah, you know, we were coming out of COVID. We were rebuilding the airline. We were rebuilding a lot of experience in our teams. We had engine issues. So we had aircraft out, which meant we were trying to fly our existing aircraft really hard. And all of that scrunched up the schedule. We had equipment we needed to buy. And then we've done a lot of work to modernize our tooling, our procedures. We rolled out a new app that allows everyone to collaborate on the turn. So all of the sort of dozens of people that who work on turning an aircraft around, they're now using this app to communicate with each other and coordinate through that process.
So you could argue you should have done that years ago because an app wasn't invented last week, was it? I mean, it's not your fault. I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying that these are the sort of things.
How do domestic, regional and international punctuality figures compare?
So whatever happens, every time I talk about it in New Zealand, I'm going to get 9,000 texts from people who were going from Tauranga to Wanarua and they paid $8,000 to get there and the plane never took off. Is that broadly, in your view, fixed?
My view is customers don't really care about the stats. They care about if their plane goes on time. And so our job is to do that day in and day out. And we can talk about the stats. But what we have to do is prove it through actions and keep going. So we rebuild that customer trust because one bad flight can wipe out six or seven good ones.
How much of the stat is being enhanced by the fact you're flying less because of your cutbacks?
Yeah, the consolidations from the Middle East have created a little bit of slack in the system. That's good, but it's not eight points worth of good. So we know that we've made structural improvements that we're seeing roll through the system.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:01
2
How has Air New Zealand's on-time performance changed recently?
0:01–0:22
3
What responsibilities does the Ground and In‑Flight Chief Operations Officer cover?
0:22–2:49
4
How do domestic, regional and international punctuality figures compare?
2:49–4:47
5
What external factors (like weather) versus internal issues affect punctuality?
4:47–6:06
Speakers
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