Perhaps it’s the haunting rendition of Pokarekare Ana, a song long synonymous with New Zealand’s success on the world stage. Perhaps it’s the footage of airline staff through the ages having a laugh with passengers, blissfully ignorant of what lies ahead. Perhaps it’s Temuera Morrison’s fatherly reassurance that whatever happens, our national carrier - and New Zealand as a whole - will not give up; that lessons learnt from previous challenges will see us through.

Whatever the case, it’s hard to watch the video Air New Zealand created to mark its 80th birthday on April 30 as a Kiwi and not feel some sense of loss. As much as we liked to complain about the airline before the coronavirus pandemic stopped its global fleet in its tracks, many of us were proud to call one of the world’s top-rated airlines our national carrier. And many of our most memorable journeys began and ended with them.

When Air New Zealand sent out its birthday party invitations in January, its future looked bright. Thriving in what many called the golden age of travel, the airline had posted a healthy profit thanks to a booming tourism sector, low fuel prices and sound management. With new aircraft on order, a non-stop service to New York on the horizon, potentially game-changing economy class sleep pods in the works and a high-profile CEO at the helm, it seemed the sky really was the limit. 

And then the Covid-19 crisis happened, travel was brought to a near-standstill worldwide and Air New Zealand, like all other airlines, was forced to ground planes, axe routes and lay off staff. But, as Morrison says in the video, the airline “will continue to look forward”.

When Air New Zealand forerunner Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL) first flew from Mechanics Bay in Auckland to Rose Bay in Sydney in 1940, the trip took nine hours and all 10 passengers aboard the “flying boat” landed in Sydney Harbour. 

Within a month of the government ordering three Short S30 Empire flying boats to launch New Zealand’s first passenger aircraft service, World War II was declared and Britain decided it could only spare two. Operated by TEAL, the two aircraft, Aotearoa and Awarua, remained New Zealand’s only link to the outside world throughout the war - but only the well-off could afford a ticket. 

In the 1990 documentary Reaching for the Skies - an End to Isolation, Peggy Finley, a passenger on one of these early trans-Tasman flights, said they were “very exciting, very romantic and visually a fantastic experience, particularly if you were sitting on the lower deck as I was.”

One dressed, she said, “as if you were going to Ellerslie Racecourse” and meals were fairly fancy - in a retro kind of way. Think oysters and tomato soup followed by roast chicken, pineapple ham and salad. With fruit salad and cream, cheese and biscuits for dessert. 

Designed for coastal flights and short hops between bodies of water, the flying boats were pushed to their limits over the notoriously turbulent Tasman Sea. The dodgy weather forecasts at the time didn’t help either.  

In the documentary, former TEAL chief pilot Oscar Garden recounted the experience of hitting a “very bad headwind” halfway across the Tasman after receiving a “crook weather forecast”. Too late to turn back, they pushed forward, arriving in Sydney 12 hours and 10 minutes after takeoff. 

“The engineer said we had about five minutes’ petrol left.”

TEAL’s trans-Tasman services to Sydney continued for 20 years, providing, as New Zealand encyclopedia Te Ara puts it, “a memorable spectacle for thousands of people, as well as a luxurious style of air travel that few would experience again”. 

TEAL used British-made Solents, considered the last of the great flying boats, on its world-famous Coral Route from Auckland to Fiji, Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tahiti, still considered one of the world’s most romantic journeys ever. 

Taking some 30 hours, the journey included a brief stopover on the Cook Island of Aitutaki, during which passengers enjoyed lunch and a swim while the plane refuelled. 

“They came out and collected us off the flying boat and we were taken onto this gorgeous little atoll where you could put your bathing suit on and they covered you with leis,” Finley, who also flew the Coral Route, says. 

“And they had this marvellous luncheon for you there in the Pacific Ocean. You thought there’s the flying boat sitting out there in the water and there you are on this atoll and it was dreamlike, just totally dreamlike.”

While airlines overseas had switched to land-based planes after the war, TEAL’s political structure and post-war loyalty to Britain meant the conversion didn’t begin here until 1954, when the Auckland to Sydney service switched to DC6 aircraft. 

On the domestic front, 1945 proved a pivotal year, with new legislation creating a single domestic airline, the National Airways Corporation which assumed control of private airlines two years later. 

In its first five years of operation, the fledgling domestic airline lost money and suffered three fatal crashes but, with Kiwis taking to flying like they weren’t named after flightless birds, it still managed to expand. By 1952, it was in the black again and the airline remained New Zealand’s dominant domestic airline until its enforced merger with Air New Zealand in 1978.   

New Zealand had well and truly entered the jet era by the time the government took full control of TEAL in 1961, changing its name to Air New Zealand in 1965. 

Former ground engineer Geoff Wells said in Reaching for the Skies that he suggested the new name after growing sick of people thinking TEAL was Australian. 

“I told the directors here, I said “we’re known as Tasmanian Airways, which is all wrong. Why don’t we change it, [since] we’re going a bit international now, why don’t we change it to Air New Zealand? And they said “Good idea, we’ll put it forward at the next board meeting”. And it was changed on my birthday, funnily enough.” 

In November of that year, Air New Zealand moved into its new base in Auckland’s Māngere with the American-made Douglas DC-8 as its flagship aircraft. The long-range jet enabled the airline to spread its wings far wider and within just a few years, it had increased trans-Tasman and Pacific Island services and begun flying to Asia, North America and the United Kingdom. 

In those days, air travel was a glamorous affair for all passengers. Even those in the cheap seats were welcomed aboard with eye masks, socks and packs of postcards, and air hostesses in Christian Dior dresses served three-course meals on bespoke Crown Lynn dinnerware. First-class passengers had whole crayfish delivered to their seats. Less glamorously, everyone either smoked or inhaled it - the bar menu included a selection of cigarettes and the division between the smoking and non-smoking sections was hazy. 

Kiwis quickly began to take pride in their small but plucky international carrier and this, together with a boom in tourism, saw the airline flourish financially, enabling it to transition to all-jet, wide body and jumbo aircraft. 

The 1980s saw Air New Zealand transition to a truly global airline, with the first flight to London via Papeete and Los Angeles taking off in 1982. 

An Auckland Star report on August 27 quoted Air New Zealand chairman Bob Owens as saying it was “an excellent flight. We were about three-quarters of an hour late leaving but we made up the time on the way.”

The twice-weekly flights to London were considered so luxurious, they were dubbed “the Ritz of the Skies”. First-class passengers settled into sheepskin-covered seats with glasses of Dom Perignon champagne, dined on the likes of caviar, foie gras, lobster and beef Wellington (carved seatside until safety regulations put an end to it in the early 2000s); and watched back-to-back movies on the big screen up front, paying about $16,000 (roughly $57,000 today) for the privilege. 

Queen Elizabeth II flew Air New Zealand from London to Auckland via Los Angeles in 1995, making it the first routine commercial flight ever used by a reigning British monarch. Prince William has also flown the route - twice. Firstly as a baby with parents Prince Charles and Princess Diana and, in 2019, on a tour of the Pacific.

As Te Ara notes, “the tussle between the state and private enterprise has been a continuous theme in New Zealand’s aviation history”. One, in fact, that continues to this day. 

When competitive private enterprise gained traction in the 1980s and the government opened domestic airlines to foreign ownership, Air New Zealand quickly came under pressure. On the main trunk route, it faced particularly stiff competition from Australian airline Ansett and later Qantas. 

Air New Zealand was privatised in 1989 and, in 2000, took control of Ansett after paying Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp about $A580 million (NZ$611.6m) for its 50 per cent stake. Which ultimately proved to be a $611.6 million mistake.

Ansett’s collapse in 2001 sparked another years-long blame game, this time with Air New Zealand and the New Zealand and Australian governments variously held responsible. 

Australian deputy prime minister John Anderson blamed Air New Zealand’s management for what he termed a “diabolical mess”, saying the government could not provide the A$170 million indemnity the administrator had wanted to keep Ansett going. 

Air New Zealand acting chairman Jim Farmer, meanwhile, said Ansett executives had informed John Howard’s government three months before its collapse that it was losing A$18 million a week and had net debt of A$1.9 billion. In a statement to the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Farmer said Ansett executives had brought the matter to the government’s attention again in a letter warning of Ansett’s “coming crisis”. 

The collapse of what had been Australia’s second-biggest domestic airline sparked strong anti-New Zealand sentiment across the ditch. Union leaders threatened to kick Air New Zealand out of the country if employees were not paid their dues, while many vowed to boycott New Zealand products.

New Zealand’s then-Prime Minister Helen Clark was caught up in the controversy when Ansett staff blockaded her Air New Zealand flight in Melbourne, prompting her to call a military jet to fly her back to Auckland.

“The Australians were like possums in headlights,” she told a New Zealand television station at the time.

Air New Zealand reported a $1.4 billion loss for the year to June 2001, including a $1.3 billion writedown of the Ansett subsidiary. The government proved its white knight, bailing it out to the tune of $885 million and returning the airline to partial state ownership.

With the global aviation sector in turmoil as a result of a downturn in travel, due in part to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, the airline’s recovery was far from certain. 

“The general expectation for Air New Zealand was at best survival, at worst a slow death in the midst of the rise of the value-based airline (or VBA),” an article on the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise website states.

The airline’s early adoption of new aircraft and innovation also played a key role in its return to profit and repositioning as a premium rather than lower-cost carrier. 

In June 2014, Air New Zealand’s first Dreamliner touched down at Auckland International Airport to much fanfare, ushering in yet another new era for the national carrier. The first Dreamliner 787-9 in the world to enter commercial service, the jet black aircraft, registered as ZK-NZE, promised cheaper airfares thanks to its increased number of seats and fuel efficiency. The airline had ordered 10 of the 787-9s, which had a list price of nearly US$250 million (NZ$284 million), as part of its “go beyond” strategy focused on building an international network through airline partnerships. 

Air New Zealand now has more than a dozen Dreamliners, but the fleet has been constrained since 2017 due to problems with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines fitted to the aircraft.

ZK-NZE itself was beset by a series of mishaps before being grounded for a year after being hit by a catering truck in April 2019. While other Dreamliners had their engines removed, repaired and refitted, ZK-NZE had its engines transferred to another aircraft to help the airline maintain its schedule while it was out of action. ZK-NZE returned to service in mid-March 2020, with pilot Phillip Kirk describing a test flight over the North Island as “flawless”. With the coronavirus forcing the airline to scale back services by this point, however, the airline’s chief revenue officer acknowledged it would be a challenge to find somewhere to fly it.

Air New Zealand became the first airline to boil water on board in 1950 and has continued to build upon its reputation for innovation, harnessing new technologies to improve the customer experience. 

The Skycouch, launched in 2011, revolutionised the economy class experience for those who could afford it, while the Airband, introduced in 2015, made parents feel a whole lot better about letting their kids fly solo. 

The world’s first biometric bag drop; artificial intelligence-powered chatbot Oscar; “digital human” Sophie, an Avatar-like addition to the customer service team; an in-flight entertainment system with novel features such as messenger service Seat Chat; and vanilla-flavoured edible coffee cups are among its other innovations over the past decade. 

Meanwhile, the airline has continued to face challenges. 

In August 2019, it reported a net profit of $270 million, a steep drop on the previous year's $390m. Irene King, former chief executive of the Aviation Industry Association and now an independent aviation commentator, said at the time that the drop was likely the result of a changing global economy. 

King approved of former Walmart CEO Greg Foran’s appointment as Air New Zealand’s chief executive, a role he assumed in February 2020. 

“With his experience of having to restructure in a really, really tough environment, he will understand which levers to pull very quickly,” she told Stuff business reporter John Anthony in mid-April.

The current environment is of course tougher still - the result of what King described as “the biggest, meanest, ugliest black swan ever”. “Black swan” being a metaphor for extremely rare events that strike out of the blue and have a severe impact. 

As Anthony noted, the coronavirus pandemic has proved one of the biggest black swan events in modern history, not just for the aviation sector but for the entire global economy. 

Air New Zealand has since reduced its network capacity by 95 per cent, suspended dozens of routes, negotiated a $900m loan from the Government and set in motion a plan to reduce its headcount by 30 per cent – the equivalent of at least 3750 staff.

While a provision on the government loan says no routes on the existing network will close, experts are sceptical this will prove to be the case. 

King suggested that, in 12 months time, the airline’s domestic operations may encompass just Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, while economist Benje Patterson said the post-Covid airline would focus on domestic and short-haul passenger services initially, along with cargo revenue. 

“The airline is likely to shy away from its newer destinations in South East Asia and its bold super long haul service to New York may be a step too far initially,” Patterson said. 

Whatever the case, the 80-year-old airline will be returned to its roots as a small operator, albeit with a focus on domestic rather than international services.

Fortunately, the airline is used to playing David to the Goliaths of the aviation industry, frequently punching above its weight. In November 2019, Air New Zealand reclaimed the title of airline of the year in AirlineRatings’ Airline Excellence Awards, which evaluate carriers on factors such as safety, fleet age, profitability, passenger reviews, product offerings and staff relations. Air New Zealand had won the title five times before losing out to Singapore Airlines in 2018. 

AirRatings editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said New Zealand’s national carrier topped nearly every category that year, describing it as “the industry’s leading benchmark”. 

“Air New Zealand’s commitment to excellence in all facets of its business starts at the top with outstanding governance and one of the best executive teams in aviation through to a workforce that is delivering consistently to the airline’s strategy and customer promise,” he said. 

While Singapore Airlines also scored highly across the 11 criteria, Air New Zealand’s passenger feedback gave it the edge, Thomas said. 

New Zealanders have remained staunch supporters of the airline throughout its 80-year-history, due in part to the strong brand it has cultivated. Kiwis see the airline and its staff as representative of New Zealand and therefore have a strong desire to see it succeed. 

It’s impossible to predict just how long it will take for passenger numbers to return to pre-Covid levels but this strong support from the nation - and government - certainly give it a fighting chance. Both King and Patterson said the government would not allow the airline to go under, recognising the importance of a national carrier to New Zealanders and the economy. 

Air New Zealand chief revenue officer Cam Wallace said the airline expects its domestic market to start up first and then its trans-Tasman and Pacific markets. Other international markets will follow, potentially on a country by country basis, he said. 

“The timeline is very uncertain and will be driven by government responses and management of the virus from around the world, rather than any airline or industry. Air New Zealand’s first priority is to support New Zealand’s efforts to manage the spread of Covid-19. Once successful, our expectation is short-term domestic business travel will bounce back first, followed closely by domestic leisure travel as we anticipate some pent up demand from people seeking to re-connect with friends and family.”

As every other person says right now, we are living in “unprecedented times”. But it should be borne in mind that Air New Zealand has proven time and time again that it can adapt to drastically changed circumstances and rise phoenix-like from the ashes - with a little help from its friends. 

The lessons in human and public relations it learned from the Erebus tragedy together with the strategic and financial ones it has learned from Ansett and continuing to adapt to an ever-evolving, exceptionally competitive environment will no doubt prove invaluable to its battle to come back from Covid-19. 

None of us know what the airline - or indeed the world - will look like when Air New Zealand’s 81st birthday rolls around but the national carrier’s resilience over the years certainly serves as a harbinger of hope.