Qantas Group ceo Vanessa Hudson is driving home the importance of the group’s presence in New Zealand and committing to working with the trade.
Speaking at an event in Wellington last night she said QF and Jetstar have carried more than 5.8 million Kiwis in the last 18 months and added that Auckland is becoming an increasingly important eastern hub for the group.
QF is investing in Auckland because of its potential ‘and we want to be the airline that realises it’ Hudson told those an airline event co-hosted by New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and attended by politicians, trade, aviation industry and tourism leaders.
. . . Investing In Agents
Speaking afterwards, she said the airline was investing in the relationship with travel agents and bringing them technology and the tools that they need to serve mutual customers.
“We see their customers as our customers, and we want them to be able to provide the best value. I believe travel agents will always be an essential part of aviation and distribution,’’ she says.
. . . More Growth
Next month QF’s AKL-New York service moves up to daily and it has started AKL-Perth. The carrier has opened it new Auckland lounge, as part of the hundreds of millions of dollars it is committing to its lounge network globally.
While some JQ and QF capacity in this country and across the Tasman has been trimmed in response to the fuel price spike, the trend is up and Hudson says the group is making its biggest investment in 65 years of flying here.
“The situation in the Middle East continues to affect routing and costs for airlines globally. But what we’ve learned over more than a century of flying is that when conditions are difficult, you back the relationships that matter most.’’
QF and JQ added more than 800,000 seats across the Tasman over the last 12 months.
JQ is undergoing its largest ever expansion here, launching seven new domestic and transtasman routes over the past two years and QF is about to start new Gold Coast and Samoa services from AKL.
. . . A Special Club
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who headed Air New Zealand for seven years, joked that he and Qantas boss Vanessa Hudson were part of a special club.
“We are people who have managed a character called Cam Wallace. I don’t know whether I worked for him or whether he worked for me,’’ the PM said of the former NZ revenue boss who is now QF’s head of international and was at the function.
Luxon told those at a QF event in Wellington last night that he had huge admiration when he competed with QF which plays a critical role in this country. Having a growth-oriented airline was crucial to powering the economy, he added.
