AIR Chathams is hopeful of a return of its regular domestic services in coming months as the country emerges from Covid-19 restrictions.
The airline has had to halt its 120 flights a week, which included return flights from Auckland to Whakatane, Whanganui and the Kapiti Coast, to six essential return flights only to the Chatham Islands because of restrictions on air travel.
It has drawn hundreds of messages of support and encouragement on Facebook after owner Craig Emeny posted a message saying although Air Chathams had not escaped the chaos which had hit the aviation industry particularly hard it had maintained its workforce, thanks to the wage subsidy scheme.
He said they were “all eager and available to provide charter flights nationally and into the South Pacific at limited notice while of course adhering to the current Government health guidelines”.
General manager Duane Emeny told the Beacon the timing of the reinstatement of its services would be crucial.
“We are now diverting our attention to what a recovery looks like and how we would be able to resume services in a smart way. I think a big part of that will be engaging with local government because at the end of the day for an economic development point of view it is really vital to have that direct connectivity, in the case of Whakatane, into Auckland, which is the centre of commerce.”
Mr Emeny said the airline would be working with Whakatane District Council, as it had done in the past, to discuss how they could restart the service.
“I think the key for us is to make sure we get that timing right because we don’t want to be in a position where we are trying to restart multiple air service routes and not have the working capital to support that.”
Mr Emeny said it was quite likely that from Thursday next week there might be a downgrade from alert level four back to alert level three.
“However, from an Air Chathams point of view it is probably unlikely that we will be able to operate with any level of effectiveness until alert levels one or two, ideally alert level one.”
He said this was because under levels two and three there was still a requirement for a high level of social distancing and that would affect demand for services.
“It is really going to be only essential people travelling.”
“As we have seen in the lead up to the lockdown, the demand just plummeted, and we had huge cancellations. There were a number of flights that showed as a full flight and then not even a third of the passengers would actually show for it.
“I think you would have to be very careful about the timing of any reinstatement of services.”
Mr Emeny said as a result of the travel restrictions around Covid-19, New Zealand had become a domestic market for almost everything.
“In terms of tourism, for example, … we are diverting all the international promotion and trade development into domestic markets to try support what tourism entities are remaining.”
Mr Emeny said when New Zealand reached the point of being Covid-19 free, domestically they would be able to ramp up significantly.
“I think after that it will be a case of each international partner, Australia being the obvious one, if they get to a similar stage in their Covid recovery, opening up the borders to that destination only.
“So, from an Air Chathams point of view, the majority of our international travel, which links to our domestic services, would be to Australia so that would be a big portion of our market coming back potentially later this year or early next year.”
In the meantime, Air Chathams is providing an essential air freight service to the Chatham Islands.
“Fortunately, there are no coronavirus cases on the Chathams and so want to keep it that way but if there were, we could help with sending out samples and test kits and things like that.”