Provocateur

Already the stand-out in Australasia, Christoper Luxon plans to take Air New Zealand from a “good” airline to a “great” one

We fly people not planes. ” Christopher Luxon may be 18 months into his tenure as chief executive of Air New Zealand, but the former Unilever executive remains driven by applying his knowledge learnt and experience gained in a successful management career outside of aviation, and he repeats that mantra often.

“You don’t hear lots of airline execs actually talking about the customer or about their own people, and as a result, when you fly round the world, you often see staff very disconnected from their organisations. That, to me, is job number one. ” For Air New Zealand that is arguably a case of ‘job done’. The Kiwi flag carrier has been consistently ranked New Zealand’s most attractive employer, a reflection of the airline’s high level of staff engagement. That in turn reflects the dramatic turnaround at Air New Zealand over the last decade. In the wake of the Ansett collapse that forced the New Zealand government to re-nationalise the airline it was close to collapse itself and staff morale was at rock bottom. But under the hands of three successive chief executives who came to the airline from outside of aviation, Air New Zealand has experienced a remarkable renaissance.