Review findings on the management of NZ9 delays

Media release

6 August 2014

Review findings on the management of NZ9 delays

Air New Zealand has now completed its review of all aspects surrounding the delays to flight NZ9 from Honolulu to Auckland last week, including the airline’s management of the event.

Chief Executive Officer Christopher Luxon personally oversaw the review which has confirmed the root cause of the disruption was an engineering issue. The review identified a series of shortcomings in the airline’s international disruption management processes, including customer communication, and has highlighted how some of our staff may have failed to meet the high standards expected of them.

“I would like to apologise again to our customers whom we let down in Honolulu. This disruption should have been managed better on many levels and some valuable lessons have been learned across our airline,” says Mr Luxon.

Mr Luxon has written to NZ9 customers today outlining the outcomes of the review, which include:

• Investment in a new communication system to provide better direct contact with customers affected by significant disruptions – one option is already being trialled.

• The establishment of a team of staff with specialist skills and experience in large scale international disruption management to be dispatched to international ports at short notice to assist local teams in the event of a significant disruption.

• Enhanced training in disruption management for all international airport management teams.

• Interviews are underway with pilots and cabin crew who were in Honolulu during the disruption to determine whether there were any breaches of the company’s Code of Conduct.

• All Air New Zealand staff will be reminded of the company’s Code of Conduct to ensure there can be no misunderstanding of expected standards.

“Over the past week my team has spoken to every NZ9 customer for whom we have contact information and they have given us some excellent feedback that will help us improve our systems and processes. I am extremely grateful for the frank and constructive nature of the conversations we’ve had and I hope that our customers see the set of actions outlined today as an indication of how seriously we take this incident and how determined we are to learn from it,” he says.

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