Air NZ pleases South Island

By CHRIS DANIELS aviation writer

Air NZ has just made a lot of new friends in the South Island, saying it will start flying non-stop between Christchurch and the United States.

From November, the airline will fly three times a week from the South Island to Los Angeles, with a matching drop in flights from Auckland.

Auckland flights to LA will drop to two a day, instead of 17 times a week.

The flights to Christchurch mean an extra 60,000 seats a year into and out of the South Island.

Ian Bougen, chief executive of Christchurch and Canterbury Marketing, said the Air NZ announcement was welcome news for South Island tourism operators. It would be particularly useful in attracting wealthy Americans who may only want to visit Queenstown, for example.

Behind yesterday's announcement of the new Christchurch-Los Angeles flights lies a pending re-structuring of Air NZ routes and services, made possible by the introduction of new aircraft.

Air NZ is expected to make a final decision within the next two weeks about the kind of new aircraft that will replace its fleet of Boeing 767 planes. These 767s fly to Japan, the Pacific Islands and on to the US.

With new planes having much better range, Air NZ is expecting to be able to fly non-stop to Shanghai.

The airline is choosing between two types of planes: the twin-engined Boeing 777 family, or the European-made Airbus A340 family, which have four engines.