"It's all speculation." Air New Zealand boss Rob Fyfe told of the rumors about his career movement. As he is expected to step down late this year, Fyfe has been reported to have been recruited for a job at Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

Fyfe, 50, has been credited with driving a turnaround in the strategy and culture of the airline, and keeping it profitable even during tough times.

"I think that [speculation] must only emanate from the fact that Richard Branson was down here a few months ago and I managed to go in a boat race with him and break my finger in the process, but no - he hasn't offered me a job," Fyfe said.

Of the race, Fyfe used New Zealand-made Sealegs amphibious boats against the British billionaire and BNZ chief executive Andrew Thorburn in October last year. He reportedly beat Branson.

Saying his departure from the airline on Dec. 31 would make way for other members of the executive team to "grow and realise their full potential," Fyfe told the New Zealand Herald he had made no plans for his post-Air New Zealand career.

Prime Minister John Key yesterday thanked Fyfe for his work with Air New Zealand, and suggested there might be "other opportunities" for the outgoing chief executive.

Asked about his strongest memories in the airline, Fyfe said mourning the death of seven people in the 2008 crash of an Air New Zealand Airbus A320 into the Mediterranean, off the coast of France, was the darkest moment in the almost seven years he spent as chief executive.

"There were other moments ... we had an engineer who lost his life at Safe Air [a Blenheim-based subsidiary of Air New Zealand] last year," Fyfe told the Herald. "Those moments ... touch you very, very deeply."

Fyfe also recalled having travelled to Antarctica last year with relatives of victims of the 1979 Air New Zealand Erebus disaster.

"To see the impact that (the trip) had on those people and how that helped them to move forward was one of the more special moments, I think, in my career."