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1. Plan a pinot pilgrimage to New Zealand – and don’t forget the jet boat ride
The 95,000 visitors in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup, which culminates its 45-day run on Oct. 23, are about to learn a bittersweet lesson. As hard as it is to get to this country on the other side of the world, especially from such distant places as North America and Europe, it can be harder to leave. And not because of the post-rugby crowds at Auckland airport. The place grows on you from the minute you touch down.
It captivated me while still in the air as my flight slipped under the clouds on the last leg of a 30-hour journey from Toronto to Queenstown. The Southern Alps, frosted on many of the peaks, often glowed with a bright, grassy green below the snow line. Ireland meets the Rockies, I thought.
Regrettably, my travels included no rugby games. I had come for two more placid sports, eating and drinking. World Cup frenzy notwithstanding, New Zealand has come a long way since Rod Derrett's 1960s working-class anthem Rugby, Racing and Beer. I was keen to bear witness.
For starters, I intended to eat my weight in fresh seafood. I had heard in particular of a prized delicacy called the Bluff oyster, mainly harvested near the town of Bluff on the southern coast. I was told it's illegal to export the mollusk, and in a contemplative moment while crossing the Pacific on Air New Zealand's non-stop service from Vancouver, I fancifully imagined little hands emerging from their shells to deliver the one-finger salute to the tide of globalization.
My main destination: Central Otago, the world's southernmost wine region and source of some of the most compelling new pinot noirs outside France. If you love pinot, you probably know that finding a few good ones often entails travel beyond your local Canadian liquor store, and planning a vacation around the pursuit can seem entirely reasonable. Like the All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team, pinot has a way of breeding fanaticism.
The delicate, highly perfumed variety rises to its greatest glory in Burgundy, where some grand crus literally sell for as much as a discount economy seat to Auckland. Notoriously fickle to grow, the thin-skinned grape favours cool temperatures to preserve its food-friendly acidity and demands well-drained soils to concentrate its berry-like flavours and earthy overtones.
Central Otago, near the bottom tip of this twin-island country, has caused a stir among the pinot cognoscenti during the past decade. It lies at 45 degrees south, similar to Burgundy's latitude in the north. The mountainous region also boasts an asset Burgundy sadly doesn't, reliably sunny summer skies. Ripeness comes easily, yielding concentrated, intensely fruity wines. Thanks to the high elevation, brisk nights also keep the acid in play, pulling the grape back from the jammy, high-alcohol abyss that can be pinot's demise in certain regions of, say, California, Australia and Chile.
This is an ideal time to plan a wine pilgrimage to Central Otago – winter in Canada means summer there. The flight from Auckland, the capital in the north, to the wine-exploring base of Queenstown, at under two hours, is bliss not just for the scenery but also for the security screening, which is to say there is none. Domestic air travel in New Zealand is almost as hassle-free as taking a city bus. The biggest differences: a guaranteed seat and fewer concealed weapons.
Regardless of the season, you'll be sharing Queenstown with no shortage of tourists, especially young ones. The place bills itself as the adventure capital of the world. Located on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and easily explored on foot, it's home to such extreme sports as skydiving, paragliding, jet-boat rides and, of course, bungee jumping. Between winery visits, I nervously opted for what I calculated would be the tamest option only to be propelled at 85 kilometres an hour down a fast-flowing canyon river on a shallow-displacement boat that performed no fewer than eight 360-degree spins. It was like being on a waterborne tilt-a-whirl. Mercifully, I was not required to test the buoyancy of my life preserver, but the mandatory full-length spray jacket came in handy. So did the gulp of pinot noir I later downed – still wobbly-legged – at Amisfield, a pretty, stone-walled winery just 15 minutes from Queenstown, where I also ate in the excellent, relaxed bistro.
2. Thrills aplenty on New Zealand's Stewart Island
Pilot Raymond Hector banks his nine-passenger Britten-Norman Islander wide over the Southern Ocean heading for a beach landing at Mason Bay on rugged Stewart Island, a 20-minute flight from New Zealand's southernmost city, Invercargill, and a cornerstone of the Southland tourism district.
This undated photo courtesy of Venture Southland shows a Bluff signpost on Stewart Island off the south coast of New Zealand. Stewart Island is just 67 square miles (172 square kilometers) in size and has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer. (AP Photo/Venture Southland)
A giant chessboard at a park along Half Moon Bay in Oban township on Stewart Island off the south coast of New Zealand. Stewart Island is just 67 square miles (172 square kilometers) in size and has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer. (AP Photo/Dennis Passa).
This undated photo courtesy of Venture Southland shows Oban township on Stewart Island off the south coast of New Zealand. Stewart Island is just 67 square miles (172 square kilometers) in size and has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer. (AP Photo/Venture Southland).
Minutes later, skimming only 50 feet above the sand, traveling at 120 miles per hour, with a rocky outcrop on the left and sea surf pounding on the right, the plane appears to be running out of room for a landing. Suddenly Hector pulls up a sharp left, cascades over a coastal range, and does another circuit of the beach before making a spectacular sandy touchdown a few minutes later.
It's only just after 7 a.m., but the passengers have had their first adrenaline rush of the day, and perhaps one of the best of their lifetime.
"All part of the experience, just a gentle pull-up," says the former Air New Zealand pilot, smiling and realizing that it's somewhat of an understatement. "We do a beach inspection, just to see what shape the sand is in. We can tell by the color whether it's soft or hard, and most people get a bit of a kick out of it."
The same could be said for the entire experience on the Jurassic Park-like island which also features a combination of fossilized and lush rainforests and clear, pristine bays. In 2002, 85 percent of the island was designated as Rakiura National Park, named for an indigenous Maori word meaning "Land of the Glowing Skies."
Stewart Island is just 67 square miles in size, about the same geographically as Singapore. But Singapore has a population of 5 million. Stewart Island has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer.
But it's a finite population in the peak season around Christmas, with Hector and the local ferries from Invercargill having to cut incoming service to the island. "We can get them there, but there won't be anywhere for them to stay once we do," says Hector.
The island is known, among other things, as home to the highest per capita number of millionaires in New Zealand, most of whom remain low-key and mix with the locals as if they had no money in their pockets. One, in retirement, started up an island spring water business which is thriving on the mainland. Its profits help support local environmental projects like Ulva Island, an eight-minute water taxi ride from the main island. Ulva has been predator-free since 1997, allowing for a wide range of native birds such as brown kiwi and fernbirds to flourish.
Locally caught fish is also part of the island experience. Hector, speaking outside the quaint South Sea Hotel, recalled catching some blue cod and taking them into the restaurant there. "They battered them, threw in a few chips and a bit of lemon and we sat down to eat. It was like 40 minutes from the time the fish were minding their own business until we were having them for lunch," he said.
Back on the nearby mainland, the southern coastline offers great hiking, or tramping, as it is often called in New Zealand. For the serious enthusiasts, the Tuatapere Hump Ridge track offers a three-day walk from beach to mountaintop. The town of Bluff is known for its plump oysters, and Invercargill, a city of 50,000, also known as "The Friendly City," offers heritage buildings, museums and the Queen's Park botanical gardens.
A back-room visit to the boutique Invercargill Brewery shows six large tanks representing the company's line of beers. Brewmaster Steve Nally explains that it's a never-ending battle to withstand takeover attempts from the two biggest multinational breweries in Australasia.
"We want to call our own shots," says Nally.
Hector flies several times a day between Invercargill and Stewart Island, and as he swoops over the island's interior, he points out areas that look positively untouched.
"I've been down here for many, many years, and nobody has ever set foot in some of these remote areas," Hector says. "This area is positively Jurassic. You get the sun in the right place and if a dinosaur was to poke his head out, it wouldn't surprise me."
3. Air New Zealand CEO: International Network to Make Profit by Year-End
National carrier Air New Zealand is undergoing a major review of its long-haul flights. Though it posted a net profit of NZ$81 million ($62 million) for fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, its international network has been under pressure, losing a million dollars a week. CNBC's Christine Tan caught up with CEO Rob Fyfe to find out what is his long-haul strategy.
You're undergoing a major review of your international network. What are some of the changes you're hoping to make?
The big challenge for us, because we're a tourist airline, is we don't have nearly as much business traffic as many of our larger hub-based airlines, you know like Cathay or Singapore. So we tend to get a lower yield per seat, and that means we have to keep the cost base very competitive. So we're constantly looking at innovations (as to) how we can enhance our yield.
It's about finding good partners to work with. We've just developed an alliance with Virgin Australia, and that will be revenue additive to our business. We're also looking at partners in other parts of the globe. We've got a co-tier relationship just set up with Virgin Atlantic, looking at ways we can feed more passengers and higher value passengers onto the network.
So we're not going to solve the problem by cutting costs, which is what a lot of airlines will do. We're looking for ways that we can generate incremental revenue.
So you're not laying off staff on your international network?
No, no. In fact we're growing at the moment. We just want to grow more profitably.
When do you hope to make money on your international network?
By the end of this year, our international network needs to be profitable. I'm confident it will be.
New Zealand relies mostly on tourism flows coming into the country. Is the high profile Rugby World Cup held here in New Zealand what you need to boost profits for the airline?
We are counting on it. It's a really important catalyst for us. We think we'll generate an additional NZ$30 million worth of revenue which will largely fall straight to the earnings line.
million dollars. What sort of timeframe are you looking at?
We'll generate that over the six week period of the tournament, and then we hope that we'll continue to benefit from the profile that New Zealand gains through the tournament as it's broadcast to many, many countries around the world, so that will raise the profile for all-round tourism.
Aviation NEWS By
Neha Jain
Aviation NEWS Reporter
1. Plan a pinot pilgrimage to New Zealand – and don’t forget the jet boat ride
The 95,000 visitors in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup, which culminates its 45-day run on Oct. 23, are about to learn a bittersweet lesson. As hard as it is to get to this country on the other side of the world, especially from such distant places as North America and Europe, it can be harder to leave. And not because of the post-rugby crowds at Auckland airport. The place grows on you from the minute you touch down.
It captivated me while still in the air as my flight slipped under the clouds on the last leg of a 30-hour journey from Toronto to Queenstown. The Southern Alps, frosted on many of the peaks, often glowed with a bright, grassy green below the snow line. Ireland meets the Rockies, I thought.
Regrettably, my travels included no rugby games. I had come for two more placid sports, eating and drinking. World Cup frenzy notwithstanding, New Zealand has come a long way since Rod Derrett's 1960s working-class anthem Rugby, Racing and Beer. I was keen to bear witness.
For starters, I intended to eat my weight in fresh seafood. I had heard in particular of a prized delicacy called the Bluff oyster, mainly harvested near the town of Bluff on the southern coast. I was told it's illegal to export the mollusk, and in a contemplative moment while crossing the Pacific on Air New Zealand's non-stop service from Vancouver, I fancifully imagined little hands emerging from their shells to deliver the one-finger salute to the tide of globalization.
My main destination: Central Otago, the world's southernmost wine region and source of some of the most compelling new pinot noirs outside France. If you love pinot, you probably know that finding a few good ones often entails travel beyond your local Canadian liquor store, and planning a vacation around the pursuit can seem entirely reasonable. Like the All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team, pinot has a way of breeding fanaticism.
The delicate, highly perfumed variety rises to its greatest glory in Burgundy, where some grand crus literally sell for as much as a discount economy seat to Auckland. Notoriously fickle to grow, the thin-skinned grape favours cool temperatures to preserve its food-friendly acidity and demands well-drained soils to concentrate its berry-like flavours and earthy overtones.
Central Otago, near the bottom tip of this twin-island country, has caused a stir among the pinot cognoscenti during the past decade. It lies at 45 degrees south, similar to Burgundy's latitude in the north. The mountainous region also boasts an asset Burgundy sadly doesn't, reliably sunny summer skies. Ripeness comes easily, yielding concentrated, intensely fruity wines. Thanks to the high elevation, brisk nights also keep the acid in play, pulling the grape back from the jammy, high-alcohol abyss that can be pinot's demise in certain regions of, say, California, Australia and Chile.
This is an ideal time to plan a wine pilgrimage to Central Otago – winter in Canada means summer there. The flight from Auckland, the capital in the north, to the wine-exploring base of Queenstown, at under two hours, is bliss not just for the scenery but also for the security screening, which is to say there is none. Domestic air travel in New Zealand is almost as hassle-free as taking a city bus. The biggest differences: a guaranteed seat and fewer concealed weapons.
Regardless of the season, you'll be sharing Queenstown with no shortage of tourists, especially young ones. The place bills itself as the adventure capital of the world. Located on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and easily explored on foot, it's home to such extreme sports as skydiving, paragliding, jet-boat rides and, of course, bungee jumping. Between winery visits, I nervously opted for what I calculated would be the tamest option only to be propelled at 85 kilometres an hour down a fast-flowing canyon river on a shallow-displacement boat that performed no fewer than eight 360-degree spins. It was like being on a waterborne tilt-a-whirl. Mercifully, I was not required to test the buoyancy of my life preserver, but the mandatory full-length spray jacket came in handy. So did the gulp of pinot noir I later downed – still wobbly-legged – at Amisfield, a pretty, stone-walled winery just 15 minutes from Queenstown, where I also ate in the excellent, relaxed bistro.
2. Thrills aplenty on New Zealand's Stewart Island
Pilot Raymond Hector banks his nine-passenger Britten-Norman Islander wide over the Southern Ocean heading for a beach landing at Mason Bay on rugged Stewart Island, a 20-minute flight from New Zealand's southernmost city, Invercargill, and a cornerstone of the Southland tourism district.
This undated photo courtesy of Venture Southland shows a Bluff signpost on Stewart Island off the south coast of New Zealand. Stewart Island is just 67 square miles (172 square kilometers) in size and has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer. (AP Photo/Venture Southland)
A giant chessboard at a park along Half Moon Bay in Oban township on Stewart Island off the south coast of New Zealand. Stewart Island is just 67 square miles (172 square kilometers) in size and has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer. (AP Photo/Dennis Passa).
This undated photo courtesy of Venture Southland shows Oban township on Stewart Island off the south coast of New Zealand. Stewart Island is just 67 square miles (172 square kilometers) in size and has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer. (AP Photo/Venture Southland).
Minutes later, skimming only 50 feet above the sand, traveling at 120 miles per hour, with a rocky outcrop on the left and sea surf pounding on the right, the plane appears to be running out of room for a landing. Suddenly Hector pulls up a sharp left, cascades over a coastal range, and does another circuit of the beach before making a spectacular sandy touchdown a few minutes later.
It's only just after 7 a.m., but the passengers have had their first adrenaline rush of the day, and perhaps one of the best of their lifetime.
"All part of the experience, just a gentle pull-up," says the former Air New Zealand pilot, smiling and realizing that it's somewhat of an understatement. "We do a beach inspection, just to see what shape the sand is in. We can tell by the color whether it's soft or hard, and most people get a bit of a kick out of it."
The same could be said for the entire experience on the Jurassic Park-like island which also features a combination of fossilized and lush rainforests and clear, pristine bays. In 2002, 85 percent of the island was designated as Rakiura National Park, named for an indigenous Maori word meaning "Land of the Glowing Skies."
Stewart Island is just 67 square miles in size, about the same geographically as Singapore. But Singapore has a population of 5 million. Stewart Island has only 300 to 400 year-round residents, most around the township of Oban. The number swells to more than 3,000 in the Southern Hemisphere summer.
But it's a finite population in the peak season around Christmas, with Hector and the local ferries from Invercargill having to cut incoming service to the island. "We can get them there, but there won't be anywhere for them to stay once we do," says Hector.
The island is known, among other things, as home to the highest per capita number of millionaires in New Zealand, most of whom remain low-key and mix with the locals as if they had no money in their pockets. One, in retirement, started up an island spring water business which is thriving on the mainland. Its profits help support local environmental projects like Ulva Island, an eight-minute water taxi ride from the main island. Ulva has been predator-free since 1997, allowing for a wide range of native birds such as brown kiwi and fernbirds to flourish.
Locally caught fish is also part of the island experience. Hector, speaking outside the quaint South Sea Hotel, recalled catching some blue cod and taking them into the restaurant there. "They battered them, threw in a few chips and a bit of lemon and we sat down to eat. It was like 40 minutes from the time the fish were minding their own business until we were having them for lunch," he said.
Back on the nearby mainland, the southern coastline offers great hiking, or tramping, as it is often called in New Zealand. For the serious enthusiasts, the Tuatapere Hump Ridge track offers a three-day walk from beach to mountaintop. The town of Bluff is known for its plump oysters, and Invercargill, a city of 50,000, also known as "The Friendly City," offers heritage buildings, museums and the Queen's Park botanical gardens.
A back-room visit to the boutique Invercargill Brewery shows six large tanks representing the company's line of beers. Brewmaster Steve Nally explains that it's a never-ending battle to withstand takeover attempts from the two biggest multinational breweries in Australasia.
"We want to call our own shots," says Nally.
Hector flies several times a day between Invercargill and Stewart Island, and as he swoops over the island's interior, he points out areas that look positively untouched.
"I've been down here for many, many years, and nobody has ever set foot in some of these remote areas," Hector says. "This area is positively Jurassic. You get the sun in the right place and if a dinosaur was to poke his head out, it wouldn't surprise me."
3. Air New Zealand CEO: International Network to Make Profit by Year-End
National carrier Air New Zealand is undergoing a major review of its long-haul flights. Though it posted a net profit of NZ$81 million ($62 million) for fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, its international network has been under pressure, losing a million dollars a week. CNBC's Christine Tan caught up with CEO Rob Fyfe to find out what is his long-haul strategy.
You're undergoing a major review of your international network. What are some of the changes you're hoping to make?
The big challenge for us, because we're a tourist airline, is we don't have nearly as much business traffic as many of our larger hub-based airlines, you know like Cathay or Singapore. So we tend to get a lower yield per seat, and that means we have to keep the cost base very competitive. So we're constantly looking at innovations (as to) how we can enhance our yield.
It's about finding good partners to work with. We've just developed an alliance with Virgin Australia, and that will be revenue additive to our business. We're also looking at partners in other parts of the globe. We've got a co-tier relationship just set up with Virgin Atlantic, looking at ways we can feed more passengers and higher value passengers onto the network.
So we're not going to solve the problem by cutting costs, which is what a lot of airlines will do. We're looking for ways that we can generate incremental revenue.
So you're not laying off staff on your international network?
No, no. In fact we're growing at the moment. We just want to grow more profitably.
When do you hope to make money on your international network?
By the end of this year, our international network needs to be profitable. I'm confident it will be.
New Zealand relies mostly on tourism flows coming into the country. Is the high profile Rugby World Cup held here in New Zealand what you need to boost profits for the airline?
We are counting on it. It's a really important catalyst for us. We think we'll generate an additional NZ$30 million worth of revenue which will largely fall straight to the earnings line.
million dollars. What sort of timeframe are you looking at?
We'll generate that over the six week period of the tournament, and then we hope that we'll continue to benefit from the profile that New Zealand gains through the tournament as it's broadcast to many, many countries around the world, so that will raise the profile for all-round tourism.
NEWZEALAND AVIATION NEWS
Aviation NEWS By
Neha Jain
Aviation NEWS Reporter
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