Air New Zealand says 'Bollocks!' to magazine

Air New Zealand management have gone to extraordinary lengths to deny it is going down-market in its planned alliance with Virgin Blue. The airline took out full-page newspaper ads and created a micro-site to refute a withering editorial in current affairs magazine the New Zealand Listener. The Listener's editorial said the alliance would turn Air NZ into a "no-frills" budget airline.

Air NZ did not take kindly to the criticism. It reacted by taking out a full-page ad in the New Zealand Herald using mainly sign language refuting the editorial. At the top of the Air NZ ad, in tiny font, is the note: "We've worked bloody hard to create an airline New Zealanders can be proud of, and it really winds me up with someone gives us a gratuitous slap."



The airline also created a video where a woman stands next to the airline's CEO Rob Fyfe and uses sign-language to refute the editorial. The airline didn't go all the way, however, and still had subtitles at the bottom of the video. In the video Mr Fyfe says, through the interpreter: "Dear Listener. Ironically it seems you haven't been listening to us. We've got to say, you are hardly being true to your name.

"If you had bothered to give Rob a call, you would have heard loud and clear about our continued dedication to being the world's best airline. As you appear to have turned a deaf ear to us, we thought it best to respond in a language you may be more familiar with.You reckon it's 'inevitable' Air New Zealand will downgrade its services if our proposed trans-Tasman alliance with Virgin gets approved. Bollocks!"