No pots of gold, says airline chief

Press, 5 August 1983, Page 4

No pots of gold, says airline chief

From

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor, in Auckland

Entrepreneurs who expect to find pots of gold at the end of Air New Zealand’s internal routes after the Government deregulates domestic aviation next year are going to be disappointed, according to the airline’s chief executive, Mr N. M. T. Geary. Some “would-be competitors” might hold the notion of getting into the domestic ■airline business to make pots of gold, but Mr Geary said that they would not do so.

He was confident that the $8.6 million profit the airline made on its domestic network would not be eroded in the present financial year. “Beyond that, though, I

just don’t know,” he said. Mr Geary hinted that further low-cost domestic fare initiatives, such as the recently introduced “thrifty” fares, might be launched in the coming months.

As the airline moved further into profitability, he would like to see a proportion of private shareholding in the company. “But it certainly is not the time for that just yet.” The question of releasing shares in Air New Zealand to the public was raised by the Attorney-General, Mr McLay, at the recent National Party conference in Dunedin. The chairman of Air New Zealand, Mr R. A. Owens, commenting from London, said: “The sharemarket is buoyant at the moment and I don’t believe the public would be put off by

the present operating loss.

“They would grasp them. I wouldn’t mind buying a few myself.”

A former member of the airline’s board, and general manager of N.A.C., Mr Doug Patterson, said the move had always been at the back of the board’s mind.

A 40 to 50 per cent public shareholding would give the airline much more stability, Mr Patterson said. It would remove the habit of having political appointees made to the board. This had always been a problem with Air New Zealand and N.A.C., he said. Mr Patterson said “privatisation” would be feasible only when the airline was back in profit — “at the moment it is not with its operating loss of $33 million on international services.”