Fran O'Sullivan on Air New Zealand

The New Zealand Herald today carries a story on Air New Zealand by top journalist Fran O'Sullivan. The story speculates about the possibility of a limited sell down of shares by the government and discusses the changes brought about by CE Rob Fyfe.

I have a great deal of respect for Fran's abilities as a journalist and still recall from my Treasury days the speed with which, in the annual Budget lock up for journalists, she would find the stories that the then governments were not so keen to have highlighted. This latest story, however, has one howling factual error. It refers to "Air Nadi" instead of Air Pacific.

Note that the government's share of Air New Zealand has recently fallen from around 82% to 76.75% following the conversion of convertable notes held by Qantas.

Needless to say, I and my Ministry of Transport colleagues are banned from holding shares in Air New Zealand.