Air New Zealand Prepares For Star Alliance

<B> Air New Zealand Prepares For Star Alliance</B>

By Jay Campbell

As it prepares for entry into the Star Alliance next spring, Air New Zealand is expanding its sales staff, ramping up efforts to contact the corporate customers of the alliance's partner United Airlines and enhancing its business traveler product.

"We are just starting off doing joint sales calls with United," said Ian Quartermaine, Air New Zealand's El Segundo, Calif.-based vice president of the Americas. "We can't quote prices without antitrust immunity, but we have filed our application for immunity." Still, he noted, it could take 12 to 18 months to achieve that, "with all the scrutiny of airline alliances."

At the moment, Air New Zealand is a "full observer" member of the Star Alliance, which means it can sit on a number of committees. Quartermaine said he expects ANZ to reach full membership status by March 1999.

Quartermaine, who started his job earlier this year, has created a first-ever ANZ sales office in Chicago staffed with new regional sales managers. The airline also has four new district sales managers in Boston, Cleveland, Minneapolis and New York, and more marketing people in Los Angeles, including a specialist in corporate and meetings management.

The changes are designed to support sales for the carrier's new codeshare flights on United to 10 U.S. cities: Boston, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. ANZ expects to eventually codeshare on all U.S. points served by United.

In terms of its own operations, Quartermaine said Air New Zealand is the third largest foreign carrier by passengers carried at LAX, behind Mexicana and Korean Air.

"We could soon move into second," he said in a summer interview, highlighting the double-digit growth the airline anticipates from both Australia and New Zealand to the United States. That growth, Quartermaine hoped, will offset the drama in Asia, which represents "a huge chunk of our network," he said. This month, the airline is increasing its flights between LAX and London to daily one-way service.

Quartermaine said ANZ has reduced the number of first-class seats to make room for a higher pitch and recline, and will install new first-class seats in early1999, bringing it in line with other Star Alliance carriers. "These will be the same first-class seats that United installed on its Boeing 777s," he said.