Jaunted

Low Cost Carriers

Pacific Blue Likes Punctuality (Mostly)

February 8, 2008 at 9:50 AM | 0 Comments

We mentioned recently that Air New Zealand was having to cut its prices to compete with the likes of Pacific Blue, child airline of Australia's Virgin Blue. But perhaps the situation for Air NZ is even more dire, because the general manager of Pacific Blue, Adrian Hamilton-Manns, is now working on getting really strict about punctual plane departures.

It's a bit rich, coming from a new airline that had delays over Christmas that stranded some passengers overnight, but now Pacific Blue wants the New Zealand government to establish reporting standards so that the public is aware of how late (or early!) airlines are. Such a system is already in place in Australia, and Pacific Blue now wants to show how good a job they can do.

Unfortunately, the airline's new year had a less-than-fantastic start, and we're sure Hamilton-Manns won't be happy about last week's delay at Melbourne Airport. With a Pacific Blue flight to Christchurch due to depart, a flight attendant suddenly fell ill and the other staff had to convince 13 passengers to get bumped to other flights, so that the crew to passenger ratio was legal. Getting volunteers to disembark took an extra ninety minutes, which will definitely look bad for Pacific Blue's statistics. But we wish them luck, just the same.

Related Stories:
· Pacific Blue Man Pushes Punctuality to the Max [NZ Herald]
· Pacific Blue Has Ways of Making You Disembark [The Age]
· Air New Zealand's Having Ups and Downs [Jaunted]

[Photo: PhillipC]