Air NZ looks to boost domestic tourism with additional Queenstown flights

May 19, 2020
Queenstown (file picture).

Queenstown has been one of the worst financially hit spots in New Zealand as a result of Covid-19, but the tourist hotspot is getting a boost from Air New Zealand which is restarting domestic routes.

The national carrier this morning announced it will restart its Wellington-Queenstown route on May 28 - in time for Queen's Birthday weekend - as well as adding flights from Auckland.

In a statement today, Air New Zealand general manager networks Scott Carr said, "we're keen to bring more New Zealanders to Queenstown and to boost the tourism industry in particular.

"We've been sufficiently encouraged by demand for seats into Queenstown since publishing our schedule for Alert Level 2 that we're bringing forward the resumption of services from Wellington," he said.

"In addition, we'll be adding further flights from Auckland to cater for those wanting to head south over Queen's Birthday weekend.

"The requirement for physical distancing on our services does mean that we need to also see strong demand for seats in both directions, so we hope that the additional services will also cater to Queenstown locals looking to travel north."

The airline will operate a daily return service between Wellington and Queenstown between May 28 and June 2, as well as a daily return service on June 5 and June 7 using its A320 aircraft.

From June 12 there will be three return Wellington-Queenstown A320 services a week on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Additional frequencies will be reintroduced as demand permits.

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