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Australian airline Ozjet is still undecided about whether to establish a base in Rotorua or Hamilton.
Either way, Rotorua residents are to have greater access to charter flights to the east coast of Australia as Ozjet plans to set up more charter flights to Australia from Rotorua for special events like the Bledisloe Cup.
Ozjet announced in January it wanted to establish itself in New Zealand - with Rotorua or Hamilton being the top options for a Kiwi base. If it came to Rotorua the airline would need 20 to 30 staff, including pilots, hosting staff and engineers, to operate two 737 jets, each capable of carrying 106 people.
Ozjet group general manager Willie O'Neill told the Daily Post the company was yet to make up its mind where the business would be based because there were several " loose ends" that needed to be sorted out. These included charter flights as well as the possibility of setting up regular domestic flights to areas not already serviced by Air New Zealand or Qantas.
He said he could not go into any further details about how often the flights would be or where they would be to.
However, he said if Rotorua missed out, it was the intention to set up regular charter flights to Australia from Rotorua anyway.
Mr O'Neill would be in New Zealand in the next two weeks to finalise the plans and an announcement was due in about a month. He said whether Rotorua Airport was granted resource consent to extend its runway would not affect whether Ozjet would be based in Rotorua.
"The resource consent decision will not have any influence, it's commercial issues we need to sort out."
Independent commissioners have made their decision on whether to allow Rotorua Airport's runway to be extended but it has not been publicly released. The decision is being looked over by the council's lawyers.
More than 60,000 people from the Bay of Plenty, Hawke's Bay and Gisborne have been to Australia in the past year - making Rotorua an attractive place to have a transtasman service.
- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)
