Air New Zealand to Add Flights to Mount Cook

Air New Zealand (Air NZ) is planning to launch services to Mount Cook from Christchurch and Queenstown on a six week trial from December next year. The airline will offer the flights on the Christchurch – Mount Cook – Queenstown routing between December 23, 2012 and January 27, 2013 to meet high-season demand from offshore markets, particularly tourists coming in from Japan.

“The decision to launch this seasonal service comes after a lot of combined effort from Christchurch Airport CEO Jim Boult, Hermitage Chairman John Davies and Air NZ to make the route feasible,” explained Bruce Parton, General Manager Australasia, Air New Zealand Group. “This new route is a credit to the drive and perseverance of both Jim and John. They have had the vision and belief in this regional development and we have been proud to listen and support them with this.”

The new link will make it easier for groups to stay overnight at Mount Cook and also make day trips possible to the region, something that is expected to be particularly popular with cruise ship traffic arriving in the area over the Southern summer months as well as fast links to Queenstown enabling travellers to visit several of the South Island’s key tourism regions.”

The 40-minute service between Christchurch and Mount Cook will operate three times a week, timed to connect with the arrival into Christchurch of the direct service from Tokyo and other morning services into Christchurch from domestic airports such as Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington. The service will be operated by Air NZ subsidiary airline Mount Cook Airline using a 68-seat ATR 72 turboprop.

“We’re thrilled with the opportunity presented by the reintroduction of scheduled flights into Mount Cook. The Japanese market has certainly been supportive of this initiative and we are hoping the service will grow to include the full Japanese touring season of December through to March. Add to this, the increasing numbers of passengers from other Asian countries into Christchurch and we see this venture as a win-win for everyone involved,” said John Davies, Chairman of The Hermitage Hotel.

There is currently no other operator on the route and a successful trial could lead to the route being established on a longer seasonal basis to support the potential demand mentioned above. “We do see a gap there that we hope this new service will fill,” said Bruce Parton. The airline last operated services between Christchurch and Mount Cook a decade ago, with the last service in February 2002.

Meanwhile, Air NZ has also revealed that it will increase capacity on its flights to Rotorua during the Northern Winter 2012/2013 schedules by using mainline jet aircraft on some of its flights. The carrier currently offers three daily ATR turboprop flights per day between Rotorua and Queenstown, via Christchurch, but six flights a week will be flown using a Boeing 737 between November 2012 and March 2013. This will mean increasing capacity between Rotorua and Christchurch by 27 per cent and between Christchurch and Queenstown by 14 per cent with available seat capacity each week between Rotorua and Queenstown growing from 1,428 to 1,818.

The expansion is a response to feedback from inbound tour operators that there was a demand for groups to fly to Queenstown directly from Rotorua, and vice versa, rather than travelling by road via Auckland, according to Bruce Paton. It seems early to be revealing details of the Winter 2012/2013 schedules given that we have only just started the 2011/2012 period, although Bruce Paton confirmed the reasoning for this. “Whilst it’s some months away, we wanted to announce this initiative now to inform the industry and allow inbound tour operators to build the new service into their itineraries, which often have long lead-times,” he said.

The return of the Air NZ jets to Rotorua will follow four and a half years after they were removed from the airline’s flights to the destination, the last scheduled flight taking place in April 2008. An estimated 26,000 O&D passengers travelled between Queenstown and Rotorua last year, up 11.8 per cent on the previous 12 month period.