Hawaiian Airlines is bailing out of New Zealand over next winter, choosing to fly more lucrative Northern Hemisphere routes, with patchy Kiwi demand for American destinations.
The three-times-a-week service to Honolulu will be suspended from April next year, with intention of resuming early November 2024.
But that means less competition, leaving Air NZ exclusively flying the route next winter.
Board of Airline Representatives executive officer Cath O'Brien told Checkpoint it was not unusual for airlines to temporarily suspend their services in and out of New Zealand, but it was a shame.
"New Zealand is a small market, geographically isolated from the world and that is always our biggest challenge. So we have to work really hard to attract airlines to come here because we need to feed off that other larger market, you know?" she told host Lisa Owen.
But it was not just our geographic isolation and lack of population causing problems for international airlines, she said.
Incoming flights need to have a backup place to land, in case for whatever reason they cannot go to their intended destination. For Christchurch and Auckland airports, that is the Royal New Zealand Air Force's Base Ohakea, north of Wellington.
"The trouble with it at the moment is that it is not available all the time, and that is because there is not enough rescue fire resource at the airbase to make it available," O'Brien said.
"And because it is not available, when it is not available, someone who is flying to Auckland has to have their alternate as Christchurch, which is much further away. And because it is further away, an aircraft will need to carry maybe 2.5 tonnes of extra fuel.
"And because you are carrying extra fuel, your aircraft is heavier and because your aircraft is heavier, you can carry less passengers, and because you can carry less passengers, you make less money.
"It certainly makes the route less, less profitable and less good. And so if we have infrastructure that can't quite be available for airlines flying to New Zealand like that, that makes the business case of New Zealand - which is already a small market a long way away - just that little bit worse."
Another factor is the strong US dollar.
"New Zealanders will look at the US destination and they will think twice… I think it is something like 58 cents today. And so, you know, there was a time when that was 80 cents and it is a totally different thing."
If you do not mind non-direct flights, O'Brien said there were other options to get to Hawaii, such as Fiji Airways.
"I think what we have to do here in New Zealand is work really hard to make sure that we are a destination that's good for airlines to operate to."
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