Battle of the ex-Air NZ CEOs: Rob Fyfe says Luxon’s scathing rebuke not ‘cool’

Former Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe says Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s rebuke of the airline was not “cool”.

Luxon, another former Air NZ chief executive, was scathing after the airline posted a $242 million after-tax loss in the last financial year.

“It’s clearly a very poor result. It’s clearly a very poor performance, even in the context of global aviation and other airlines as well,” the PM said on Friday.

His predecessor at the airline, Rob Fyfe, was asked about Luxon’s comments today.

“I don’t think it’s so cool as an ex-CEO to be commenting on the current CEO or his team,” Fyfe told Ryan Bridge TODAY.

“If I’m brutally honest, I suspect the engines that have been causing Air New Zealand so much grief are engines that ... either it was Christopher or me that made the decision to buy them,” he added.

“I’d be the last one to be throwing any stones.”

Fyfe was chief executive from October 2005 to the end of 2012 and Luxon was chief executive from 2013 to September 2019.

The airline on Friday blamed factors including high jet fuel prices, engine availability issues, lifecycle maintenance costs, extra maintenance costs on leased engines, and aviation system costs for its loss.

It said the multi-year engine issues alone contributed $190m to the loss before tax.

Luxon said it was a “pretty poor performance” and added: “It’s really up for them to explain what’s caused such a significant loss and also, more importantly, what are they going to do to build a better business?”.

Luxon did, however, praise current airline chief executive Nikhil Ravishankar, who took over last October.

Today, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s office said Luxon was speaking on behalf of taxpayers, the majority shareholder in Air New Zealand.

They said the PM would be expected to reflect taxpayer interests.

Air New Zealand in 2015 decided to buy Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1100G-JM engines for its new Airbus narrowbody fleet, while Luxon was chief executive.

The airline’s other engine problems had been with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000s Air New Zealand used on Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

That decision to use the Trent 1000s was made at least as far back as 2004, then again in July 2009, when Fyfe was chief executive.

The GEnx-1B (General Electric) was an alternative engine.

The choice of Rolls-Royce instead of GE became an irritant for Luxon’s successor Foran.

Foran last year told the Herald that he was glad the airline chose GE engines instead of the Trents for its new Dreamliners.

Rolls-Royce at the time said the engine issues were the highest priority for its civil aerospace division and it had a Trent 1000 task force working hard to resolve the problems.

Public relations specialist Trish Sherson told Ryan Bridge TODAY Luxon’s recent comments seemed like “a punching-down on Air New Zealand”.

She said Fyfe had taken ownership for one of the problems that had beleaguered the airline.

Former Labour Party leader Phil Goff today suggested that Luxon’s comments on the airline were unfair.

“You slam everybody else ... people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” Goff told the programme.

“He shouldn’t be talking his organisation down.”

Rob Fyfe has suggested Christopher Luxon (inset) should not have put the boot into Air New Zealand after the airline's $242m loss. Photos / Doug Sherring, Corey Fleming

Air NZ in its annual report on Friday said it had worked with Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney to expedite the recovery of engines.

“We now expect no more than one of our widebody and up to two narrowbody jets to be grounded due to these multi-year engine issues in 2027.”

Ravishankar in June told the Herald the airline’s relationship with Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney had improved.

On the 787s already in the fleet at the time, he said: “We only run Trent 1000s and so it’s a big deal for us when that engine has been problematic since 2017 and still hasn’t been fixed”.

John Weekes is a business journalist covering aviation. He also has experience covering consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.