ATC lunch breaks may force Air New Zealand to cancel flights

Air New Zealand says it would be forced to cancel 25 regional services because of air traffic controllers’ lunch break.

Air New Zealand, the national airline and flag carrier of New Zealand, has said that it will be compelled to cancel 25 regional flights each week because the staff of air traffic control will take lunch breaks from April 1, 2009.
This follows the New Zealand Air Line Pilots Association (NZALPA) insisting that air traffic controllers, who are its members, take their breaks at scheduled times, instead of working flexibly as they do now, following changes brought about in New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act, which become effective from April 1, 2009.

In a statement, Air New Zealand said it was “farcical” that services to five regional airports would have to be cancelled, adding that New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority would be forced to close five traffic control towers, two times day, for 30 minutes to 45 minutes from April 1.

Air New Zealand said the changes to the Employment Relations Act would also place jobs at risk at two of its regional airlines, Air Nelson and Eagle Air.
The regional flights that would be affected involve 25 services to and from Gisborne, Napier, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Invercargill, Bruce Parton, head of Air New Zealand’s short-haul services, said in the statement.

Airlines in New Zealand, Parton added, had been “working hard to avoid redundancies across the business wherever possible” and it was “disappointing that this action will put jobs at risk at two of Air New Zealand’s regional airlines, Air Nelson and Eagle Air.”

Air New Zealand, based in Auckland, said that regional customers would have to encounter disruption and reduced frequency as the carrier would have to remove about 2,500 seats each week from regional capacity.

The airline also said it would lose around $3 million in revenue through the cancellation of the services to airports at Gisborne, Napier, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Invercargill.
“We appear to be the victims,” the Air New Zealand statement went on, “of an overly rigid dictate to business on how to achieve a healthy and safe workplace, not to mention further constraints to the agility and adaptability we need in these incredibly challenging times.”

The effect of cancelling 25 regional flights each week on the number of jobs of pilots and cabin crew was being assessed, Air New Zealand said.