Air New Zealand

I firmly believe more people need to be aware of the importance of scientific research in Antarctica, particularly as efforts intensify to understand climate change.

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26 February 2018

Last week our network was affected once again by a major weather event, with Cyclone Gita hitting many parts of New Zealand.

A big thank you to everyone for your hard work, particularly as we took some pre-emptive action to cancel flights and give customers as much time as possible to prepare for the disruption.

The frequency of such weather-related disrupts has been steadily on the rise and certainly makes the effects of global warming feel very real for us. It also makes our upcoming Antarctica safety video, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of climate change research, very topical.

The safety video production has been made possible through our long-term partnerships with Antarctica New Zealand and the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute (NZARI), as a joint project to put the Antarctic science we’ve supported for a decade on the world stage. It will feature Hollywood environmentalist, actor and UN Environment Ambassador Adrian Grenier, who shares our ambition to highlight the work of Kiwi Antarctic scientists. Adrian is a passionate environmental campaigner and I’m confident his involvement will further help to draw global attention to the Scott Base scientists tackling the biggest climate change questions.

One of the most remote and challenging places in the world, Antarctica is a mecca for scientific discovery as it drives the world’s weather patterns and ocean currents. Scientists also believe the continent can act as an early warning system for broader environmental change. Much about Antarctica is still unknown and we’re funding a major Biological Resilience Project to help address this.

In 2015, NZARI scientists started a three-year process to collect and study samples from sites in the Ross Sea Region, with the aim of building a picture of how marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems may respond to environmental warming.

The Ross Ice Shelf is around the same size as France and any field work in this vast landscape is challenging. As an example, this summer, from a remote camp 80 kilometres from Scott Base, nine ice-divers spent up to 40 minutes, twice a day, for 20 consecutive days gathering invertebrate and sea floor DNA samples from beneath thick sea ice. The evidence captured will become part of a monitoring network scientists could use to determine how rapidly the impacts of environmental change may play out.

I firmly believe more people need to be aware of the importance of this research, particularly as efforts intensify to understand climate change. And so to give deeper insight into the people driving this pioneering work, we will also be releasing additional video and educational content on our Where to Next website, profiling the science and support staff who live and work at Scott Base.

You can view the first of these educational videos below. It provides a fascinating glimpse into this breath-taking place, and I encourage you to take a look.

Throughout this project we have been very aware of the sensitivities of Antarctica as a location. In January, Operations Integrity & Standards Officer David Morgan and Antarctica New Zealand CEO Peter Beggs got in touch with family representatives of Mt Erebus victims, outlining our rationale for using the safety video as a global platform to showcase Antarctic science. Families will also be among the first to see the finished safety video before it's shared publicly in March.

The majority of feedback I’ve received from immediate family members has been positive, with many thanking us for our efforts to help protect a place which was so special to their loved ones.

Late last year Prime Minister Ardern announced she will meet with families and Air New Zealand on plans for a national Erebus memorial, in time for the 40^th anniversary in 2019.

Prime Minister Ardern and I have discussed how we can best support these plans and our teams are now working with Ministry of Culture and Heritage as they speak with families. Naturally people will have different opinions about whether a national memorial is necessary and we will seek to help the Government understand those views and progress sensitively.

I appreciate many of you who have joined us in recent times have not experienced first-hand the major challenges we faced in our past but I’m sure most will be aware our history has been quite a rollercoaster of incredible highs and lows. One of the biggest low points, along with the Erebus tragedy, was in September 2001 when the company was essentially broke and the New Zealand Government stepped up with an $885 million capital injection to allow the company to continue into the future.

They were incredibly stressful times for management and all of our people. I’ve studied the history of Air New Zealand quite deeply and the three big heroes of that phase were Rob Cameron, John Waller and Roger France. These were the people who found a way through what was a total commercial mess negotiating with the Government, the company and the banks to secure a future for Air New Zealand. It was tough, hard, 24/7 work requiring massive intellectual energy and emotional tenacity.

Sadly, Rob Cameron passed away last week. All of us at Air New Zealand as well as our creditors and investors at the time owe him a huge debt and thanks for his efforts in 2001. Our thoughts go out to Rob’s wife, Maureen, and family.

Have a great week,
Christopher