Queenstown Airport chief executive Scott Paterson has urged Air New Zealand and Jetstar to put on extra planes from Auckland and Christchurch to cater for an expected surge of tourists from Asia between November and March.
Air New Zealand says it has already boosted capacity for the coming summer season, while Jetstar has no plans to put on more planes.
Mr Paterson told the Otago Daily Times earlier this week a 15% increase in capacity on Asian routes to Auckland Airport and a new summer service from China Airlines into Christchurch were likely to boost demand for domestic flights into Queenstown.
The airport had not seen a ''material jump'' in capacity from Auckland, and was discussing the issue with the two domestic operators.
Jetstar corporate communications manager Phil Boeyen said the airline had no plans to increase the number of flights from Auckland to Queenstown, but was always keen to discuss ''commercially viable opportunities''.
The addition of 15,000 seats between Australia and Queenstown for this year's ski season was a ''good example of putting in capacity to match expected demand''.
Air New Zealand spokeswoman Imogen Dennis said the company had increased domestic capacity into Queenstown by nearly 10% for the November to March period, compared with last summer.
It had also scheduled several extra flights in and out of the resort to support the Queenstown Marathon, which will be run on November 22.
It constantly reviewed its network to ''tailor capacity in line with demand'', Ms Dennis said.
