The images Air New Zealand wants you to see - former US Ambassador to NZ Mark Gilbert, Barack Obama, John Key and Craig Heatley on the golf course.

OPINION: Air New Zealand needed Shane Jones this week like it needed a hole in the head.

Having paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring former US President Barack Obama to New Zealand, the airline would have been expecting the public relations payback to be tenfold.

But the trip was a massive wasted opportunity.

RNZ Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is claiming success over the storm he whipped up attacking Air New Zealand and calling for the chairman to resign.

READ MORE:

* Shane Jones calls for Air NZ chair to step down, asks CEO to step down or shut up

* Air NZ announces regional network cuts

The images of Obama teeing up at some of the world's most exclusive and beautiful golf clubs might play well in the overseas markets that Air New Zealand targets.

But back home the overall impression of the trip read like something out of lifestyles of the rich and famous as Obama and a coterie of rich men were choppered in and out of luxury resorts, out of the range of prying eyes.

WARWICK SMITH/STUFF Shane Jones - he's never going to run away from publicity

The public didn't even get a glimpse of Obama when he arrived for his speech in downtown Auckland - people who lined up outside because they weren't important or rich enough to get a ticket to the invitation-only event booed when giant screens were erected to block their view.

The contrast between the glossy publicity shots and the airline's cutbacks in regional New Zealand - ironically, including Northland, where Obama was flown by helicopter for his golf round - was stark. Jones' assault on the airline for corporate arrogance and abandoning the "real" New Zealand couldn't have been timed better.

His criticism of Air New Zealand for axing routes like Kaitaia has struck a real nerve out there in the regions that NZ First professes to champion.

ROSS GIBLIN/STUFF The reality - the airport terminal at Paraparaumu. Air NZ are canning flights out of Kapiti.

Former National MP Chester Burrows was among those to join the ranks of Jones' cheerleaders, writing about Air New Zealand's woeful service to regions like Whanganui, where he lives.

The public response has been just as swift. Jones' inbox is said to have been flooded by 500 plus emails supporting his withering criticism of the airline.

Jones went too far when he called on the Air New Zealand board to step down and reminded them the Crown is a majority shareholder. But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's immediate slap down probably did him no harm.

Appeasing the business community is not his concern. At 3 per cent and sinking, NZ First is on a road to oblivion if, as is widely expected, Winston Peters decides to call time on his political career this term.

The next three years will be a desperate scrap with National for hearts and minds in regional New Zealand.

If the air goes out of National's support, voters in those regions might be swayed to vote strategically for NZ First to keep Labour and Jacinda Ardern honest.

That's assuming they can let bygones be bygones over NZ First dealing National out of Government in 2017.

That might be easier if Peters is gone, even though the downside of losing Peters will be huge. There are a few better campaigners in a tight scrap, after all. But the need for a succession plan is becoming desperate.

That's the reason for gifting Jones the multi-billion dollar provincial growth fund, set up specifically to scratch infrastructure itches in regional New Zealand.

Ports, railway lines, roads, forests - they all come with the promise of jobs, and work for local iwi and industry. NZ First fought tooth and nail for the fund during coalition negotiations - it's how it plans to shore up its credentials as champions for regional New Zealand.

The other is grabbing political oxygen where it can.

National accused Jones of hypocrisy for accepting Air New Zealand's hospitality at the Obama dinner while calling on the board chair to resign. It couldn't say much else - even one of its own MPs is running a petition to save the Kapiti Coast route.

But Jones' had his reasons. He is accusing the board of being stacked with National Party cronies (like Obama's golfing buddy Sir John Key). That's bread and butter stuff for NZ First.

Anyone who thought Jones would hand back his free ticket to the Obama dinner after taking its sponsors to task doesn't know Jones, meanwhile.

In fact, the MP nearly didn't make it to the dinner after dashing from Parliament's debating chamber just as he was about to take a patsy question a few hours before.

It caused a commotion and the conspiracy drums started beating that Jones was looking for an excuse to be a no show.

The real story of Jones' dash from Parliament was that he became violently ill.

But that would hardly have been enough to keep Jones away. He would have dragged himself to Auckland with an oxygen tank in tow if he had to.

Using the dinner as a platform for another crack at Air New Zealand over its abandonment of regional New Zealand would have appealed to Jones' sense of theatre.

With the party sinking in the polls to around 3 per cent, Jones is already styling himself as the party's self professed saviour.

He has some justification - the other NZ First ministers are exhibiting all the usual signs of bureaucratic capture that are usual for MPs suddenly elevated to ministerial office and the extra salary and perks that go with that.

But it's a short road from there back to the job market, as the Maori Party's Te Ururoa Flavell found.

And Jones is one of this government's few experienced ministers.

He's also used to having his feet held to the fire.

During the last Labour government, Jones was called out for booking up adult movies on his taxpayer-funded credit card while a serving minister.

His mea culpa was textbook - funny, self effacing and genuinely remorseful. Even the best jokes about his predicament were his. That performance didn't just bring Jones' political career back from the brink, it gave him newfound profile.

And it taught him an old political lesson - there's no such thing as bad publicity, only wasted opportunities.