Airways' final prices for the 2013-2016 period

In February 2013 Airways Corporation of New Zealand (Airways) released a formal consultation document setting out its proposed prices for air navigation services for the 2013 – 2016 period.

Consultation on the final prices is now complete and Airways has finalised its prices. 

The impact of Airways’ new prices on specific airlines and pilots will vary, depending on the routes travelled, the weight of aircraft and the services used. 

Final prices, details of the changes made to February’s proposed prices and Airways’ response to customer submissions can be found in Airways’ Consultation Response Document.

Airways would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who took part in the consultation process and who provided a submission. 

Your submissions provided a critical test of the appropriateness of the pricing inputs. 

Airline prices

The final overall price increase is 10.6% in 2013-14, 3.5% in 2014-15 and 1.2% in 2015-16. This is an increase of just over 5% a year, or 15.7% over the three years. 

As a consequence of the high quality of customer submissions, we have revised Airways’ price increase from the 23% proposed in February to 15.7% over the three years of the pricing period.

General Aviation (GA) prices

These prices reflect the Pricing Framework, which we finalised last year after extensive consultation. The focus of the Pricing Framework was to ensure that prices were simple, streamlined and inexpensive to administer and that they recovered the additional cost that GA activity is driving. 

The consultation this year focused on the inputs into the pricing process and did not re-address aspects of the Pricing Framework. 

After careful consideration of customer submissions, the main changes that GA customers will see are noted below.

• Customers flying IFR and VFR using the Aerodrome Service will see minor changes in response to the simplification of our pricing formula.

• VFR customers will also see new prices for circuits, vicinity landing and transits through the aerodrome control zone. The new prices will be phased in over three years. The price for these activities will be $1 in 13-14, $2 in 14-15 and $3.55 in 15-16.

• To ensure prices are simple and inexpensive to administer, discounts are being removed. GA contract discounts will be phased-out over three years and ticket sales will stop on 1 July 2013. An advisory notice has been provided to customers who currently have tickets, explaining what will happen to existing tickets after 1 July 2013. 

Looking ahead

The release of Airways’ final prices marks the end of an extensive six-month consultation period for prices, which included 10 public meetings and workshops, 4,500 customer letters and 40 submissions from a wide range of customers. 

The release also marks the end of a longer 18-month discussion on the development of the Service and Pricing Frameworks. Airways would like to thank you for your feedback and input into the process – customer input has been a key resource in shaping the final outcome.