I love it when somebody seizes the moment and uses it to their advantage. It doesn’t happen often in big companies where the chiefs think it wouldn’t be appropriate to score off an opponent no matter how much they’d love to do so. That’s why it was great when gutsy Air NZ took the opportunity of being able to give Qantas a gentle jab. It happened when the Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, had to travel Air NZ with the CEO of their partner, American Airlines, who were announcing new flights from LA to NZ. Air NZ is the only one currently flying that route so the Qantas CEO had to fly his competitor’s airline.

Naturally, the press asked him what he thought of Air NZ and, playing the corporate game and being the diplomat he is, he said, “Air New Zealand are an extremely well-run airline.”

An inoffensive, harmless, “nice” comment you’d reckon but it was manna from heaven for the Air NZ marketing team as the full page advert which ran in newspapers around Australia the next day clearly demonstrated.