Jetstar is backing Queenstown Airport Corporation's proposals to allow flying at night and to extend operating hours to open up new tourism opportunities in Australia.
"We're a big advocate of night flying here because that will really open up the market," Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan, of Melbourne, told the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce this week.
"I think one of the dilemmas of Queenstown has been access at the right time.
"If you look at travel patterns, especially out of places like Australia, people are taking shorter breaks, so if you can make it easier to travel and get here at the right time, I think you'll boost the market.
"If you can do three-day weekends here, the market will really stimulate a lot and I think you'll get a new segment of travel you haven't had before ... people buying holiday homes and working from home and commuting."
Existing hours of operation were restrictive, especially in the winter, Mr Buchanan said.
He understood there was approval to fly until 10pm under current zoning rules.
"That will serve us to start with. If you want to base aircraft here ... [that is] where you get the efficiency gain. If you can crack that nut, you will get a huge increase in flights and a huge increase in visitation."
Mr Buchanan said the good aspect was it would be planes arriving, not departing, at 10pm or 11pm. Departures tended to be the noisier of the two activities.
Mr Buchanan said he was calling upon both Prime Minister John Key and his Australian counterpart, Julia Gillard, to make transtasman travel easier. There was a massive duplication of infrastructure, effort and cost, he said.
Relaxing border controls would create a $250 million tourism benefit, he said.
"Why we need a full border between Australia and New Zealand when Canada and the US have worked it out, Europe's worked it out ... is beyond me."
Cost and ease of travel would "dramatically change people's mindset", from viewing the flight to Queenstown as an international flight, to seeing it as just a two-and-a-half-hour flight and as accessible to Australians as Cairns, for example.
Mr Buchanan said required navigation performance (RNP) software would continue to be refined. The carrier announced last week RNP, which assists landing in poor weather and saves fuel, had been applied to its existing daily direct A320 services from Auckland and Christchurch to Queenstown Airport.
"We did wait until January this year to use the latest technology ... and that's really important as we deal with Queenstown and night flying in the future," the chief executive said.
"That will be a critical element as the runway gets upgraded with runway lights and the resa [runway end safety area] gets completed. We'll have the next phase of RNP ready to go when we start night operations in Queenstown."
• Commissioners Bob Batty, David Clarke and Stephen Chiles adjourned the hearing of QAC's bid to extend its noise boundaries and operating hours, in late June.
They expected the hearing to reconvene, possibly in September, to hear further evidence from the airport corporation.
QAC wants to expand the noise boundaries and permit night flights to arrive in Queenstown between 10pm and midnight, allowing for tourism growth to 2037.
Thirty-seven houses within the night noise boundary would be insulated first. New residential development should not be allowed within the new boundaries.
Public Health South was concerned about the location and extent of the new night noise boundary.
Four Frankton residents made submissions on the effect of the increased noise on their neighbourhood and sleep patterns.
