High- flying exec connecting

As Auckland Airport prepares for its busiest days of the year, Carrie Hurihanganui talks to Shayne Currie about her ascent to the top, dealing with aggressive passengers and the big airport revamp

At 40,000 feet, Carrie Hurihanganui knows how to deal with life- or- death trouble. When a distressed passenger is trying to force open the door of a jet hurtling at 900km/ h above the Earth, it’s time for a cool head.

“There were certainly times — and you often hear about mixing alcohol and medication — when people would become more aggressive,” says the former Air New Zealand flight attendant, now one of the country’s top business leaders as chief executive of Auckland International Airport.

“We once had an elderly gentleman on medication. He was disoriented and of the view, ‘ I want to get off the bus.’ He was up and trying to open the door. He didn’t know where he was.

“So that’s balancing someone who’s clearly in distress, and how you support them . . . but also they’re causing stress for everybody around them who is watching.”

On this occasion, the passenger was coaxed back to his seat, and calmed by air crew with soothing words and a glass of water.

The point is that a team, in this case, of about 10 air crew can come together in a tiny, flying aluminium tube to deliver a safe outcome in an extremely stressful situation.

Hurihanganui’s experience in the air and subsequent leadership roles have given her grounding and perspective for a role that is never far from the public spotlight — dealing with upset passengers frustrated by delays in the international arrivals hall; airlines fuming about rising charges; or media demanding answers.

Part of any flight attendant’s skill is the ability to “read the room”, she says, identifying different situations each passenger might be facing as they come on board.

And as Auckland Airport prepares for its busiest days of the year — and a massive period of change in the next 12 months — the chief executive certainly seems to be reading the room.

Hurihanganui and I met for lunch on the first day of spring — a stunning Friday afternoon — at Esther on the ground floor of Auckland’s QT hotel.

She’d recently come through the airport’s annual results announcement — a creditable performance in which passenger numbers had risen 183 per cent following the end of the Covid pandemic. The company had doubled its annual revenue to $ 625.9 million and, at $ 148m, beat its underlying earnings guidance by $ 48m.

We stayed on sparkling water for the duration of lunch, necessitated by the fact she was on duty, and might be called up at any time to handle an emergency.

“Most of my career has been in aviation, or the operational environment.

“There’s an acceptance that comes with that — at any given time, in a 24/ 7 environment, something could happen. So you’re accessible.”

She’s certainly had to front up in the last year on undue delays in the likes of the international arrivals hall, where in September, passengers were reportedly waiting an average halfhour to be processed — 10 minutes longer than pre- Covid times.

“Auckland Airport needs to manage their airport,” Board of Airline Representatives executive director Cath O’Brien said at the time. “They need to be the managers, the conductors of the orchestra of that airport.

“They need to get involved with queue management, get involved with making sure the flight screens have got live flight data displaying on them, get involved with gate allocation. We need for them to conduct the orchestra and it hasn’t really been what’s happening historically.”

In a video conference call two weeks ago, as a follow- up to our lunch, Hurihanganui said the delays in September had been “disappointing”, but there had been improvements.

“We’ve been working really hard to ramp up . . . as an ecosystem we’ve needed to get all the players in the system operating in sync.

“September showed us that we weren’t quite there on that but also, I think constraint breeds innovation. I’m really pleased with the work that we’ve been able to do with biosecurity.

“They’ve stepped up to the plate, they’re willing to change how they look at things — like [ introducing] the Express Lane. We actually trialled that and that’s embedded nicely.

“I’ve certainly had pretty consistent feedback from people who have used it. And biosecurity has confirmed, they’ll have that in place for three peak periods each day.”

One floor above, in departures, aviation security has been working on updated rosters and more lanes to reflect passenger demand.

The airport has been preparing for its busiest days of the year this week and over the coming month. Flights and movements are back to 96 per cent of pre- Covid levels.

“I think we are fit for summer, but we won’t be taking our eyes off the ball, I can tell you that,” says Hurihanganui.

ORIGINALLY FROM the United States and still boasting a refined midwestern accent, Hurihanganui spent 20 years at Air New Zealand, starting in that role as a flight attendant while she studied for her business degree.

She ended up as one of the airline’s top executives — chief operating officer — during a period of tumultuous change and challenges brought on by the pandemic.

“I’ve got a soft spot for aviation — you’re connecting people, whether it be going on holiday, or they’re launching a business and seeking funding in LA, or a funeral, or a marriage. There’s just so many examples of connecting people.”

Aviation can be a bit of an old boys’ club. Hurihanganui makes the point during lunch that she has never worked for a female boss.

One of her missions is to help nurture and mentor future female leaders.

The number of female CEOs and leaders in NZX- listed companies and more generally, she says, is “abysmal”.

“Certainly through my roles, it’s something that I look at — getting to that 40- 40- 20 mix [ 40 per cent men, 40 per cent women, 20 per cent any gender].

“You absolutely pick the right people for the job. I’m not saying it’s a quota but with the likes of recruitment pipelines — and I’ve used examples of engineering — if you’re advertising for someone with 10 years’ experience for the role, then the only people who are going to fit that bill [ are men].

“You’ve got to be willing to look differently at how you are recruiting.”

At Air New Zealand, she worked for a range of well- known chief executives, including Ralph Norris, Rob Fyfe, Christopher Luxon and Greg Foran.

She has learned from all of them, she says.

“They’re all very different. They talk about different leaders for different times. Ralph Norris came in and was a step change in terms of it being about people, not planes. The reinvestment programme started that transformation.”

That era of new planes, products and services — lie- flat beds and an overhaul of how the airline sold itself — was supercharged by Fyfe.

“I really enjoyed working with Rob stylistically — I liked it because it challenged me.

“It was probably Rob that really fast- tracked that customer- focus, brand perception. He did excellent work in that time and what I learned from him I probably still use today.

“He spent a lot of time on the ground. He would go to the engineering hangar and they had him cleaning toilets. He’d invest time. That’s something that I watched — and I observed the benefit of it.”

She says workers will always be more open “on their own turf”.

“They will talk to you more clearly than they will when they come to your office.

“You’re just going to get a different thing than if you were standing alongside them by the baggage belt or at the hangar. Rob did that well as a core tenet.”

She says she gets a lot of energy from watching how work is done, as opposed to how work is imagined. While there might be a textbook or instructions on how something is supposed to be done, this might not be the reality.

“Things get filtered . . . my observation for any CEO or COO [ is that] unless you go looking, you’re only going to get told what people want to tell you.”

Luxon, she says, is different from Fyfe again.

“Rob was probably more introverted and needed to consciously put himself out there. Christopher is much more structured and more extroverted. So again, different leaders, different times.”

She says she and Luxon are similar in that they are both structured.

“Christopher is very, very focused on driving performance. There isn’t a lot of randomness. Christopher is very clear about what success looks like and what he needs to do to make that happen.”

There is one difference: Hurihanganui avoids the corporate