Air New Zealand update on Gas Turbines review

Air New Zealand’s review around historic work undertaken by its Gas Turbines business is moving forward at pace.

Air New Zealand Chairman Dame Therese Walsh says as well as commissioning a review by independent external advisers PwC, the airline has appointed a QC to the review team.

“Both our internal review and the external independent review being undertaken by PwC to determine what happened and what needs to be changed are underway. We have now appointed QC Mike Heron to review the licensing requirements for exporting these specific types of engines with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We expect to hear the outcome of that review in the next week.

“The full audit will likely take at least two weeks because we will be going over all the files – in some cases manually kept or paper records – even more deeply to ensure we haven’t missed anything. This timeframe will also ensure our external advisors PwC have time to review the findings before the final report is reviewed by the Board at the end of February. Our Board will then provide an update on the findings after it has met.”

Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Greg Foran says further progress has been made on identifying which country or territory militaries the Gas Turbines business has previously carried out engine repair work for, and that ensuring this is accurate has been critical.

“Over the past decade, engine repair work has been completed for navies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Taiwan, Turkey, the United States and the recent one-off piece of work for the Royal Saudi Navy. The type of work undertaken for these customers includes the overhaul and repair of gas turbines, the major components of these being gas generators or power turbines for navy ships.

“At this time Gas Turbines has engine repair work underway in its Auckland workshop for the Australian, Canadian, Taiwanese, Turkish and United States navies and this work is under review.

“We are continuing to move forward with the thorough assessment of our past records to ensure we have examined all of the data, but at this stage in the process these are the navies we are aware of having carried out engine overhaul or repair work for.”