Pacific Blue safety systems adequate, says aviation authorities

3.00pm

Budget airline Pacific Blue has adequate safety systems in place, New Zealand aviation authorities say -- despite a 90-minute restriction on how far its aircraft can travel from a runway.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that Pacific Blue's domestic Australian carrier, Virgin Blue, had been banned from flying more than an hour away from an airport at all times because of flaws in its maintenance records.

However, New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) spokesman Bill Sommer, said Pacific Blue, which began transtasman flights in January and was launching two new transtasman routes today, had met both CAA and Boeing safety certification requirements.

The 90-minute ETOP ("extended-range twin-engine operation", or how long an aircraft could travel on one engine) granted to Pacific Blue was "quite sufficient" for trans-Tasman flights, he told NZPA.

"If one engine shuts down halfway across the Tasman, the aircraft can easily reach an Australian airport within 90 minutes or turn around and go back to New Zealand."

The Sydney Morning Herald said Virgin Blue reported discrepancies in its maintenance logs to the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) in December, and was subsequently banned from flying more than an hour from a runway.

Casa spokesman Peter Gibson told the paper the airline had struggled to keep pace with maintenance due to faster than expected growth of its fleet.

Virgin Blue spokesman David Huttner told the newspaper there was no safety risk for passengers.

He said the company was pre-empting any issues and ensuring its systems were of the highest standards.

Mr Sommer said the CAA had no concerns about either Virgin Blue or Pacific Blue, which in any case was a New Zealand-registered airline with completely separate maintenance systems to Virgin Blue.

The trans-Tasman carrier had applied for a 120-minute ETOP, but this could take up to three or four months.

"To get certification, there's a lot of work required to prove maintenance systems and monitoring are operating satisfactorily."

Mr Sommer said the report that Virgin Blue had been "banned" from flying more than an hour from an airport was "not quite correct".

"In fact, it was the airline itself that noticed the maintenance problem and reported it to Casa and then the airline voluntarily pulled back its ETOP," he said.

Pacific Blue, which began trans-Tasman flights on January 29, could entice about 2400 more New Zealanders a week to travel to New South Wales on new routes connecting Sydney with Christchurch and Wellington which come into service today.

The addition of the Christchurch-Sydney and Wellington-Sydney flights today will double Pacific Blue's trans-Tasman services.

The flight from the capital will depart at 3.40pm today, touching down in Sydney at 5.15pm.

Pacific Blue chief executive Tony Marks said the airline would certainly be giving other carriers "a run for their money".

"Pacific Blue is proud of its role as a catalyst in ensuring these two key cities are finally benefiting from something they haven't had enough of to date -- low cost, high quality service on daily flights across the Tasman," he said in a statement.

- NZPA