Air New Zealand's Christchurch engineering base to expand

An Air New Zealand Airbus A320 landing at Wellington Airport. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Air New Zealand will be creating 45 new jobs in Christchurch after landing an agreement with Honeywell Aerospace to overhaul and repair auxiliary power units (APUs) at its local engineering and maintenance base.

The majority of the newly created jobs will be high-skilled engineering roles tasked with maintaining and repairing the APU 131-9A model for the Oceania region.

The contract, which spans eight years, will see Air New Zealand providing maintenance and repairs on the Honeywell auxiliary power units (APUs), which power aircraft while they are on the ground.

Air New Zealand will work on the APUs for its fleet of narrow body A320s as well as third party customers in the Asia Pacific region.

Bruce Parton, chief operations officer at Air New Zealand said the agreement is good news for the airline's engineering business.

"Honeywell Aerospace is a major player in the airline components industry, supplying APUs to around 75 per cent of the world's narrow body jet fleets. This agreement will allow us to continue to grow our component MRO business in Christchurch and remain competitive within the region," he said.

Honeywell vice president for Asia Pacific, Brian Davis, says the company wants to tap into local talent and resources.

Air New Zealand has chosen the Honeywell APU 131-9A for it's new fleet of A320neo aircraft rolling out in 2017, as well as retrofitting its existing A320 shorthaul fleet with the APU.