26 June 2016

The rise and fall of Kiwi Regional




This opinion piece by Max Christoffersen in yesterday's Waikato Times is a good read on the rise and fall of Kiwi Regional Airlines. 

OPINION: And so Kiwi Regional Airlines has crashed and burned. As the story spread of its demise, it seemed many could not hide their glee about the news. The story broke late on a Friday afternoon, confirming for a second and likely final time that Ewan Wilson would run an airline no more. As I backtracked to understand the news, it appears that Kiwi Regional Airlines was caught in a classic grow-or-go scenario. The airline's commercial future required investment in a second plane, but the ticket demand couldn't sustain the passenger numbers required for the new investment. The airline ran out of lift and stalled. The smaller regional routes abandoned by other airlines were not going to be sustainable on a feel-good factor. It had taken Kiwi Regional Airlines management seven months to confirm what was obvious all along to the big boys. The local airline had no future. It was over. Again. The airline's imported Saab 340a airplane met with a spectacular water cannon greeting at Hamilton airport last September is now gone, sold to Air Chathams. The Stuff headline read: Regional routes lost as Kiwi Regional Airlines folds. As the news gathered prominence in the country's media, I spent much of that afternoon reading through the story and the comments posted by those who felt compelled to make their point public. Some were passengers, some were not. Some were out for blood. And many were public about the airline's short-term future they saw coming all along. There is a lot of turbulence still lingering from passengers who were badly let down in the aftermath of Wilson's first nuts-and-cola airline, Kiwi Air. The vitriol was all over some of the comments. Passengers had not forgotten and never will. This was payback time. The lingering anger of those who were left stranded in Australia and New Zealand is ugly when in full view, but it is, nonetheless, understandable. Some opinions were heated, some informed and some were just sad at the closure of what they saw as the small guy up against the big guy coming undone again. Sifting my way through the reader comments was hard work, but some informed commentators, clearly with aviation experience made some compelling points. If the passengers have not been left behind, if Wilson's staff have been placed in new employment with Air Chathams and the only ones to lose money were the airline shareholders, then this is a carefully controlled belly landing with no public casualties. This is actually a company that had a soft landing and should be admired in the way it has been managed into a takeover from a more established player. Where is the harm? More detail will emerge in the future, but if the scenario is correct, then Kiwi Regional Airlines has been managed professionally into Air Chathams. There is no liquidation of assets or receivers making more money than anyone else. There was always something quite compelling about Wilson's story and I was interested to see if Wilson's return to the air was going to work. This was a real life yarn of redemption, a made-for-TV tale of the local boy who loved flying and loved planes. He loved them so much he started his own airline, twice. And the rest, as they say, is history. His pioneering flights of the mid-1990s changed New Zealand aviation and for a short time made us all believers of the possibility of local entrepreneurship. Just like the V8s that would follow, Kiwi Air was bold thinking based in Hamilton and if successful, it would put Hamilton into a big boys league. In an earlier column about the new venture I wrote that "Wilson has got to get this airline right or be damned for good ... don't fool us twice." There was no halfway point on this story. It was always a case of learn from the past and be better. But within hours of the first flight to Dunedin, Queenstown had been dropped from the route. It was a bad start. Regional routes were always a risk and contingencies have to be in place in the event of plane maintenance or breakdown, and when it did, grounding the airline for four days, it looked too much like Amateur Air Ltd. I had hoped we may see a local fairy tale, an Icarus story of the passionate flyer who crashed and burned, but then recovered to fly again. Wilson got close, but this will not be this story. Instead the legacy will be of a passionate flyer who failed passionately. It remains a story of triumph and tragedy that other local entrepreneurs can learn from. It should be retold and understood by those who may be tempted to try again in the future. His turbulent story may be Wilson's great legacy. 

14 comments:

  1. I agree with the article.

    KRA should have stuck with HLZ/NSN/DUD route structure only and it allow it to grow and not attempt to include ZQN or introduced TRG/NSN/DUD.

    There where doubters that KRA would fly but the locals and other supporters were prepared to give Ewan a go.

    As the article said, the '..But within hours of the first flight to Dunedin, Queenstown had been dropped from the route. It was a bad start.' which I agree with, giving to the 'Here we go again' syndrome causing a bit of backlash by the Waikato based travelling public.

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  2. Check out the Air Chathams Facebook page. Looks like (at the Whanganui terminal) the Saab 340 in Air Chathams livery has already been decided, albeit in digital format... looks like Kiwi regional ghost will linger on through the Saab...

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    1. where? i dont see it

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    2. It's on the poster on the right. One of the pictures on their post regarding Whanganui terminal being ready for the first schedule flight of Air Chats

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  3. Oh on the sub note...
    Noticed on takeabreaknow.co.nz. Rotorua airport used a air stairs ramp for all of the flights and now Taupo has done the same..? Any reason for it..? Would it be health and safety or just practical.? I remember during the Air Nelson/Eagle air (metro years) they always used roll stairs instead of the door stairs in Rotorua..

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    1. Less wear on the door.

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    2. It's a health and safety thing. Also to help facilitate the new electrical tug to help wheelchair passengers get on board.

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    3. Haha true that, my 110kg frame must be wearing out the hinges of the door!!!
      Both replies do make sense. Especially the H&S side of things as those steps are steep.
      What do you guys perfer... door steps or roll on steps

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    5. And the introduction of such loading equipment seems to have been brought about by Propstar using similar procedures at the provinces.

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    6. Absolutely nothing to do with QF Group's minor activities in NZ.

      Passenger boarding ramps have been employed across the Link network for decades.

      Initially this initiative began in the smallest of locations, such as Timaru, Hokitika, Westport etc, where only a small number of flights per day did not warrant the need to lease, maintain and staff a forklift for the disabled to be able to use the air services. Ramps were introduced in the 90's.

      Over the past 5 years Air NZ and its subsidiaries have been working with local designers on fine tuning the ramp idea resulting in many trials. BEFORE JQ EVEN ANNOUNCED IT WAS COMING.. orders were placed for a large number of ramps to be eventually used for all general boardings of its Q300 and ATR fleets across the domestic network.

      Allowing for consistency, safety, ease of use for mothers with small children and the disabled, while also reducing the costs associated with the use of forklifts.

      The Australians showing up with their large, heavy ramps at 4 airports in NZ is hardly something to run out and copy. Their design, a straight copy of QLinks operation in AU require several staff members to move it around and of late have been observed not using the ramps at all.

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    7. Just curious, what has loading steps for Air NZ/Jetstar regional aircraft got to do with the KRA?

      Anyway, on the subject of loading stairs, its about time they are rolled up across the regions. Has HLZ got them yet?

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    8. With the combined link fleets flying over 2200 flights a week it will take some time to roll out. The first ramps of the current design began rolling out in April last year.
      Every port should have atleast one by now.

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  4. Sorry Kris that's my bad mate, it honestly started of as a, sort of kiwi related subject in regards to a digital image of kiwis Saab in Air Chats livery.
    Then looking at takeabreak website. I thought something was up with four rotorua flights in a row using the ramps and I was thinking... "surely there wasn't that many disabled or elderly passengers...?" Then... I saw the same thing at Taupo and I was like curiosity got the cat... "I need to get to the bottom of this!!!" So here we are, hijacking this thread. My curiosity has now been satisfied and have learnt something for today 😀

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