Nelson’s mayor warns that Air New Zealand’s widespread flight cancellations will harm the region’s tourism sector, which is still rebuilding post-recovery.
The airlines grappled with intense cost pressures, as the Middle East conflict drove up jet fuel prices.
Air NZ chief executive Nikhil Ravishankar announced cuts to both domestic and international services, without eliminating any routes entirely—targeting off-peak flights.
Nelson is among the regions hit by the cancellations; Mayor Nick Smith said roughly 120 flights were scrapped over six weeks to Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.
“People aren’t in the mind to accept big increases in the fares, and so they’ve done a bit of fare raising as well as removing some of these services,” Smith said.
He acknowledged Air NZ’s choice to shift midday flights instead of early-morning and evening ones, which he called “crucial” for Nelson.
The region lacks a tertiary hospital, he noted, leaving many residents reliant on air links to main centres like Wellington and Christchurch for medical care.
He stated the cancellations would detrimentally affect Nelson’s tourism, a letdown given the region’s nascent recovery this summer post-pandemic.
“The bigger worry for us is what’s going to happen at the end of six weeks; of course, no one quite knows where the war in the Middle East is going to go.”
“We need the support of our national airline, so let’s hope by the time we get to May they can return those flights.”
“The key thing for a region like Nelson is that we have those links to those main centres and also keep Air NZ honest from a fares point of view that there is competition.”
“Six weeks we can live with it; if it goes on longer than that, we’ll be speaking with both Air NZ and the government.”