Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand have announced that they are substantially cutting flights on the Dunedin to Brisbane route, as planes have been 50-60% full and their margins have been too low.

I have traveled on the Dunedin to Brisbane route more than 10 times in the last 3 years, and there has never ever been a flight that is 50-60% full. On average they have been at least 90%, and mostly full.

I would like to see Air New Zealand provide these figures.

I would also like to see how Air New Zealand justifies the high cost of flights out of Dunedin. They are always substantially cheaper elsewhere, and when sales are on they never include Dunedin.

I also note in another article that unlike QANTAS, Air New Zealands profits will not be majorly effected this year. Please explain why they are cutting flights.

Air New Zealand also say that flights "may return next year". Rubbish. They are softening the blow - THERE WILL BE NO INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS THIS TIME NEXT YEAR.

As hard as (most) of the residents try, Dunedin is looking more and more like a backwater every day.

Air New Zealand needs to change it's name to Air Profit - It is an embarrassment to have a monopoly like this have New Zealand in their name.

QANTAS Slash Jobs

QANTAS slashed jobs today in a bid to protect profit. Apparently they have downgraded their profit forecast to somewhere between $100 Million and $200 Million.

What right do big companies like this have to make multimillion dollar profits like this when everyone else is expected to do it tough?

Banks

Woo-hoo. My bank passed on a 0.10% interest rate reduction. Now what am I going to do with all the extra money - $6.00 a fortnight?

I thought about going out for a meal, but then that's 6 months worth gone right away.

My First Vent - Vodafone 3G Wireless Broadband

I've decided to use my blog as an outlet to vent my frustration of bad service, bad products or just anything that pisses me off.

The first company on my target list is Vodafone Australia.

Earlier this year when we moved house, we found that Telstra (maybe they should be my first vent???) had removed the phone connection from the house and required $299 to reinstall it.

I wasn't too happy about having to pay that as you can imagine, so I decided to investigate wireless. I found that Vodafone Australia offer a 3G Wireless connection, where you get 5 gig of data for $39.95 per month, with speeds of up to 1.5 megabits.

So I signed up for a 24 month contract. All sounds pretty good. But the problem is, that like me, thousands of people signed up for the same deal. So what should be broadband speeds, turned out to be less than dial up for 3 times the price. And there are also frequent disconnections (I'm talking 15 - 20 per evening).

And don't even talk about their help desk service where a computer named Lara can't understand what you are talking about.

So if you are thinking wireless broadband, don't think Vodafone!