Real reason airline boss served drinks

Passengers on this Air New Zealand flight would have been shocked to find its CEO serving them drinks – but there was a reason why.

A major airline had to swoop in to save a group of high-profile delegates after the New Zealand Prime Minister’s aircraft broke down.

Christopher Luxon’s trade mission to Japan came to a halt when the Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft – a Beoing 757 that’s more than 30 years old – suffered two blown fuses.

It was meant to take a bunch of delegates including trade minister Todd McClay to Tokyo on Sunday via Papua New Guinea, as part of the government’s mission to grow trade.

However, they were left stranded after the discovery of two blown fuses.

The aircraft, however, was able to fly to Brisbane the following morning with the delegation onboard, but only at a low altitude.

Papua New Guinea's Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko (R) escorts New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Port Moresby International Airport on June 1. Picture: Andrew KUTAN / AFP

Mr Luxon caught a commercial flight out of Papua New Guinea and flew to Tokyo via Hong Kong, while the others had to board an Air NZ flight from Brisbane.

It helped that one of the 50-some business delegates was Air NZ CEO Greg Foran, who organised for the flight to swing by Brisbane.

Greg Foran, Air New Zealand CEO serves drinks on a flight after it was diverted to pick up high-profile delegates who were stranded after the prime minister’s plane broke down. Picture: NZ Herald

Air NZ confirmed to news.com.au that flight NZ99 from Auckland to Tokyo on June 17 made a stop in Brisbane to pick up a New Zealand government and business delegation.

News.com.au understands the flight landed in Tokyo at 8.34pm, a delay of two-and-a-half hours past the originally scheduled arrival time of 6.05pm.

“Things were pretty grim yesterday afternoon, as you can imagine as things unfolded,” Mr Foran told RNZ publication on Sunday.

Dame Therese Walsh and CEO Greg Foran serving drinks on a flight to Tokyo that was diverted via Brisbane. Picture: NZ Herald

“One of the options that we looked at was to make a quick call back and say, well just how many seats do we have on this flight tomorrow.

“With a bit of luck, it did actually work out just about perfectly. So we’ve got a very full plane now.”

Mr Foran said he would personally go around and thank passengers for inconveniencing them.

A photo shared on X showed Mr Foran serving drinks on the flight to Japan as an apology after forcing the flight to divert to pick up the trade delegates.

New Zealand’s defense minister, Judith Collins, branded the debacle “embarrassing” in an interview with local radio station Newstalk ZB.

“We have a very old aircraft and we are expecting it to perform like brand new out of the box and that’s simply not going to happen,” Ms Collins said.

“No PM wants to spend an awful amount of money on something that’s seen as nice to have by some people.”

She told media the bill was a matter for another day, adding “let’s get everyone there. We’ll worry about what we’re going to do financially when we get everyone there”.

Meanwhile, Mr Luxon coincidently spent seven years as the CEO of Air NZ before getting into politics. He was elected as prime minister in 2023 following Jacinda Ardern’s surprise resignation.