BARNZ made a strong call for the passenger experience to be protected at the biosecurity forum in Auckland this week. Ian Ferguson, BARNZ’s Pricing and Policy Manager, gave a presentation on the challenges for biosecurity of the growth in passenger volumes that we are expecting in the next few years.

Ian said BARNZ was supportive of MPI’s efforts to maintain and enhance New Zealand’s biosecurity and that BARNZ was also committed to delivering a good passenger experience through biosecurity which, after all, passengers pay for. BARNZ believes the best way to achieve both strong biosecurity protection and a good passenger experience without breaking the bank is through technology, such as the trials MPI already has underway.

The view from the agricultural and horticultural sectors was that airlines should go further and actively promote to their passengers the importance of protecting New Zealand’s biodiversity. In particular, there was a strong view that airlines should play MPI’s biosecurity video on every flight arriving in New Zealand. MPI said they may regulate to force airlines to do this. Ian said decisions on what messages to play on a flight were ultimately a matter for individual airlines, but the current video was flawed and BARNZ had been helping MPI develop a new one. We expect this will be a hot topic in the coming months.