Qantas Airways gets green light to enter NZ market

12.00pm - By JOSIE CLARKE, HERALD ONLINE STAFF

Qantas Airways has been given the go-ahead under the Open Skies agreement to operate a limited domestic service within New Zealand.

However there is no indication they will apply to fly to areas other than three or four of the main centres.

The Australian airline has applied to New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority to run a limited service which it is automatically entitled to under the transtasman agreement.

Meanwhile, passengers on early domestic flights this morning avoided the delays that have plagued travellers since Qantas New Zealand went into receivership on Saturday.

Airports around the country reported no problems this morning after Qantas rebooked almost all of its passengers on to Air New Zealand flights overnight.

Staff at an Auckland Airport Air New Zealand domestic counter reserved for Qantas passengers said they were now only dealing with international travellers who had just arrived back in the country.

Air NZ has put on an extra 50 flights today to cope with the extra demand.

Auckland man Merv Robertson, who had been booked on a Qantas flight this morning to Palmerston North, said his service had been "fantastic".

His travel agent had left two messages over the weekend confirming he had been rebooked on an Air New Zealand flight and Qantas Australia left a third message on his mobile phone this morning confirming they had rescheduled him through its frequent flier programme.

Sally Anne Wissman, an administrator with Auckland Healthcare, found herself upgraded to a business class seat to Wellington at 8.30am at no extra cost. She had originally booked on an 8.15am economy Qantas flight.

Thousands of passengers faced delays over the weekend, with Qantas NZ's demise coinciding with the end of the school holidays.

Stranded passengers were put up in hotels overnight on Saturday and buses chartered to ferry passengers booked to fly between Christchurch and Dunedin.

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