Pingu's What-Ifs Special: What If NAC and Air New Zealand Never Merged?

Kia ora, and welcome to this special edition of Pingu's What-Ifs. Today, we are covering an event that, had it never occurred, would have almost certainly have changed the way the New Zealand domestic market is today. And that event is the NAC/Air New Zealand merger. I want to quickly point out some things before we dive into this alternate history.

1: I know the livery looks quite generic and boring, but there is a reason for that. It is a modern interpretation of what the NAC livery would look like today, and I based it off of this livery here. Let's be honest with ourselves. If NAC still existed today, their livery would look like something along the lines of this anyway.

2: This is a more text-based post, so, uhh, watch out! Big wall of text about to appear. If you dislike reading, I suggest turning back now

3: I am no expert when it comes to this sort of topic, so you may want to take my ideas with a pinch of salt. Feel free to add your own ideas on this topic in the comments below.

Anyway, let's get into it!

As we all know, NAC and Air New Zealand merged as one in April of 1978. With New Zealand being a relatively small island nation in the South Pacific, it didn’t really make much sense to have two government-owned airlines operating. Qantas was looking for an alliance with NAC, and NAC was looking at restarting international Pacific routes it had ceased years earlier. With Air New Zealand feeling the pressure of this, the best move was, if you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em. And that’s exactly what happened, with the Ministry of Transport announcing the merger in September 1977.

But what if this merger never happened? What if Air New Zealand and NAC remained unmerged?

A crucial point to be made was that the merger between the two was seen as an inevitability. In an alternative short, boring world, the merger would have just happened sooner than it actually did anyway. But that’s no fun! That’s boooooring! So, why don’t we look at what if they NEVER merged, and were still separate today.

For a start, the New Zealand domestic market would look quite different. There are a few different scenarios that could have happened. I’m going to list them now.

1: Qantas obtains the alliance that they wanted with NAC, and Air New Zealand and Qantas compete even more. Air New Zealand may be/have tried to compete domestically on their own, but might have struggled due to the relatively small domestic market. Remember what happened with Jetstar Regional in our timeline.

2: Qantas doesn’t get what it wants with NAC, yet NAC and Air New Zealand still end up competing (for at least a little while). Air New Zealand also might be trying/have tried to compete domestically on their own, but might have struggled due to the relatively small domestic market. Again, remember what happened with Jetstar Regional in our timeline.

3: NAC isn’t integrated into Air New Zealand, but is in partnership and alliance with Air New Zealand. Perhaps they don’t merge fully, but merge some aspects of each other. Today, NAC is still entirely domestic focused, with Air New Zealand only flying the international and high capacity domestic trunk routes such as AKL-CHC, AKL-WLG, AKL-ZQN, WLG-ZQN, CHC-ZQN, AKL-DUD, etc. (ie routes presently flown with A320s/A321neos domestically). Air New Zealand may still join Star Alliance, but perhaps not on its own. Maybe NAC would join either fully, or as an affiliate of Air New Zealand.

This is all speculative, and I am in no way, shape, or form an expert in this field. I’m just having some fun!

Also, what about Eagle Air, Air Nelson, and Mount Cook Airlines? Air New Zealand obtained these small airlines many years after the NAC merger, in fact, all three were not fully merged into Air New Zealand until Eagle Air was dissolved in 2016, and the other two fully merged into Air New Zealand in 2019. But, if the NAC merger didn’t happen, then what would be of those three airlines?

Again, there are a couple of scenarios I can think of:

1: The 3 are never merged, and continue to fly independently. Will they still survive today? Who knows?

2: The 3 are integrated into NAC instead, but in this case, in the same way as what happened in our timeline with Air New Zealand

3: The 3 are integrated into NAC, but in this case, differently than our timeline. Maybe fully merged, or they continue to operate semi independently. Again, who knows really?

If the merger didn’t happen, then the fleet of all of these airlines would look a bit different. Here’s my guess as to the modern fleet of NAC

ATR 42
ATR 72
A320-200
A320neo

Yeah, kinda boring, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I were you. I expect that they would have operated the Fokker 50 until the early-mid 2010s as well, thanks to their heavy usage of their Fokker F27 Friendships, and maybe Fokker 70s or 100s. They may have operated SAAB 340s (SAAB 2000s in my dreams), which would have been retired by the early-mid 2010s as well. Also no Q300s here. I reckon that NAC either goes all out Dash 8s or all out ATRs, no in between. A320s seem right for the present day NAC fleet, and the A320neo is therefore a no-brainer. I imagine they might have gone the Air New Zealand route, and operated 737-300s, and perhaps the 737-400 too, both to replace the 737-200s, so there’s an equal chance that they would presently operate the 737-800. And if NAC went for 737-800, would Air New Zealand also go 737s instead of A320s too? Possibly.

If NAC and Air New Zealand never merged, there would be a whole lot of things that would be different in the present day New Zealand aviation market. There are a ton of different scenarios that branch out from this one single event not happening, that I don’t even know what one I reckon would be the one to happen. I haven’t even discussed Ansett either. If Air New Zealand and NAC never merged, could Ansett, by the means of the domino effect or something similar, still exist today? If NAC and Air New Zealand competed in the domestic market, like in scenarios 1 and 2, there would be almost no room for Ansett to enter the domestic NZ market. I mean, I kinda doubt it, but I'm not sure.

Overall, the topic of what if the NAC/Air NZ merger never happening is complicated because it would affect the events that happened later down the road, such as the merger of the three small regional airlines mentioned above into Air New Zealand, and the whole topic of Ansett too. There are a bunch of different scenarios that could have happened, that I highly doubt I've listed them all. It was just such a big event that occurred. Again, leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

ZK-NAC: 2013(ish) Airbus A320-200 | National Airways Corporation of New Zealand (NAC) | Currently: In active service with NAC flying domestically around New Zealand.