Plane seats cloud over ski season

By SCOTT MacLEOD and ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

Queenstown and Rotorua are hoping Air New Zealand will come to their rescue and fly in visitors - especially with the busy season looming for our skifields.

The two cities have lost thousands of tourists since Qantas NZ collapsed on April 21, taking with it a third of available airline seats.

Yesterday Air NZ offered a potential lifeline by promising to visit the worst-hit areas next week to see what could be done. The airline said one option was to lease or buy new aircraft and rush them into service for the ski season.

Air NZ vice-president regional airlines Howard Jellie and vice-president sales Paul Donovan will lead a team to Rotorua, Queenstown, Nelson, Invercargill and possibly other areas to meet town leaders.

Top of their agenda is assessing how many tourists would use any extra flights.

Air NZ public affairs manager David Beatson said the airline was already using all its aircraft to fly extra passengers who would have used Qantas NZ if it were still alive.

But he said it was doing its sums on leasing or buying extra Boeing 737 jets and ATR turboprop aircraft.

"It's not in our interests to see those tourist centres have problems with access - it affects our international traffic," he said. "We obviously have to get up and running quickly, because it's getting close to winter in Queenstown."

Some package tour firms are threatening to pull out of New Zealand unless the problems are fixed quickly. Their main worry is that the planes Qantas NZ flew between Rotorua and Christchurch were the ideal size for tour groups of up to 50 people, whereas most of the remaining aircraft are too small.

Air New Zealand has repossessed Qantas NZ's leased BA whisper jets, but Mr Beatson said the airline was not geared up to fly or maintain the aircraft and was sending them to Australia to help Ansett.

Queenstown hotels yesterday confirmed they had taken a thumping from the flight problems.

Gardens Parkroyal general manager Ken Harris said he had lost more than 400 room nights since the Qantas NZ collapse, including 300 in one booking.

The link with Rotorua was the main worry for group bookings, but there were also problems flying people from Christchurch. One group was delayed for a day at Rotorua and another for eight hours at Christchurch.

"Everyone's holding on to their seats hoping something will happen," he said. "We need another carrier, but an issue is the size of the aircraft."

Heritage Queenstown general manager Damien Keenan said he lost one conference group worth 60 room nights.

"My concern is losing 35 per cent of capacity coming to a destination - that's setting us back three or four years," he said. "And it's not just our problem, it's a national problem."

In Rotorua, local MP Steve Chadwick said pressure was mounting to upgrade the district's airport quickly. A $10 million plan for the work had languished for two years.

"It's all so frustrating. We can't effectively promote Rotorua, or New Zealand for that matter, if we can't cater for the people who want to see what we have to offer."

Ms Chadwick said she was urging Transport Minister Mark Gosche to push for bigger planes to be brought in for the Rotorua-Queenstown route.

Mayor Grahame Hall said he would call a meeting of all interested parties this week to see what could be done.

There was real concern about potential damage to Rotorua tourism, but he was confident airlines would cater to the market.

Herald Online feature: Aviation

Air wars - the cast list

Herald Online Travel