| Aviation: EWAN SMITH'S BIG PLANS FOR AIR RARO |
Adaptability: Key to future success
Jason Brown
Code-sharing arrangements with Air New Zealand will mark a big step forward for Air Rarotonga in 2006.
| Ewan Smith... adaptability, a one-way ticket to future success. |
Under the deal, flights to Aitutaki will be bookable as part of its destination packages sold by the international carrier, rather than as a domestic add-on only.
“We're pursuing IT issues at the moment, working out how they can come and take seats out of our reservation platform in real time,” says managing director, Ewan Smith.
Towards this, Air Rarotonga last year installed a Radixx reservation system.
“It's transformed the way we've done business with our online booking engine and e-tickets,” he says.
In the next upgrade, the airline plans to offer domestic packaging, including hotels, car rentals and tours.
Smith helped start the airline as Cook Islands Airways (CIA) in 1973, featuring one Britten-Norman Islander and himself as a pilot, engineer, and just about everything else.
At the time, CIA was a joint venture between the Cook Islands government and Air New Zealand, changing to Air Rarotonga in 1978. Now there is one Saab 340, three Bandeirantes, a Cessna and 65 staff including 13 agents in the outer islands.
Air New Zealand sold its shares in 1991, but it is coming back 15 years later seeking a code-sharing agreement.
“We think so, yeah,” confirms Smith when asked if the Air New Zealand deal would prove a major advancement.
Closer links for offshore packages, ironically comes as the airline takes note of changes in the airline industry from package deals to one-way fares and pay-as-you-go tourism.
“Before, it could be more expensive to buy a one-way ticket than a return fare,” recalls Smith.
“That's all changing now with airlines going towards one-way tickets.”
There's still room for both, he says, and warns against seeing international ticketing changes as an immediate opportunity for domestic airlines.
“I don't think so. What I think will change is people's purchasing patterns.”
Smith also downplays what he now describes as “intra-regionalism”-being just around the corner.
Flights west to Niue and Samoa, as well as east to French Polynesia, is an “idea that continues to challenge our imagination”.
Air Rarotonga raised the idea a few years back when negotiations for its first Saab 340 raised the prospects of international flights from Rarotonga. Interest was further tweaked when airlines like Air Tahiti Nui talked about being long-haul feeders for domestic airlines.
However, the reality is that domestic airlines do not have the market push to initiate anything on their own.
Smith says forward movement has to come from bigger airlines: “the Air New Zealands, the Qantases, Pacific Blues and Air Tahiti Nuis.”
In the meantime, success as an airline depends on constantly reviewing their operations, marketing and packaging each year.
Last year, Air Rarotonga flew about 75,000 passenger sectors, two thirds of those to and from Aitutaki with a further two thirds of the Aitutaki market being made up of tourists.
“We haven't really noticed a difference in our numbers.”
This year, nonetheless, Smith wants to try a change to their product: increasing flight frequency by cutting back seats and increasing cargo capacity on its “Bandits”, turning them into “mini-combos.”
Air Rarotonga also faces a decision in its choice of turbo-prop with technical support contractor, Air Nelson in New Zealand, probably taking on the Bombardier's de Havilland Dash-8 and moving out of their Saab fleet.
Smith says they will make the move with them, partially funding the change to two 30 plus seaters by letting go of one of the Bandits.
Another first will be a free national 0800 number to the call centre in Rarotonga, so that bookings and inquiries can be handled seven days a week.
Ticking away in the background, Air Rarotonga continues its policies of hiring nearly all local staff-only one engineer is expat-at overseas rates.
“We just have to be regionally competitive.
“We basically benchmark our salary levels and working conditions pretty much to what's available in New Zealand and Australia.
“We don't expect that people want to spend their entire career here but for certain windows of their life-whether it's raising a young family or whatever-that here is where they want to be,” says Smith.
He agrees that the only cloud on the horizon is possible harm to destination reputation from pollution concerns from over-development and that there is a need for stronger enforcement of existing regulations.
Smith discounts any doomsday scenarios, saying that, at worst, any market losses will see authorities “galvanised into doing something about it.”
Such adaptability is key in today's rapidly changing market-a one way ticket to future success.
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