Air New Zealand announced yesterday it will increase flights between Australia and Queenstown by 20% for the coming ski season, taking the number of international services to the resort to 20 per week.
For the peak July and August periods, Air New Zealand will increase return services from Sydney from five to six per week, and additional weekly services will be added to the current two services from Melbourne and three from Brisbane.
This adds to Qantas' five weekly flights to Sydney and Melbourne and Pacific Blue's two flights to Sydney.
Mr Budd said the announcement gave Queenstown Airport, skifields and tourism operators hope of beating last year's record season.
"It's excellent news.
"Australia is our largest international market and still has huge potential.
"Every flight is another 150 visitors who usually stay seven nights for a proper ski holiday so that's hundreds of visitor nights.
"They will be eating and drinking in town so the compound value is significant," he said.
NZSki sales and marketing manager David Ovendale said the company was "ecstatic".
"Access is the main driver to visitors coming to the area.
"We had a record season in revenue and number of skier days, so we would love to beat that or match it this year," he said.
More seats generally meant greater competition and lower prices, he said.
Queenstown Airport Corporation chief executive Steve Sanderson said the increase was "fantastic".
International visitor numbers had grown almost 30% to record numbers last year.
Domestic visitor numbers had also grown 10%, he said.
Air New Zealand Tasman Pacific manager Glen Sowry said flights from Auckland would also increase 30% in July and August to four direct return services per day.
"The increase in capacity reflects the ever-increasing interest in the Southern Lakes region as a holiday destination.
"It is also proving very popular over summer, with the number of flights from Auckland in January and February up 20% on last year," he said.
The increases amounted to an additional 36,500 seats available in and out of Queenstown.
Air New Zealand direct services across the Tasman were four per week just five years ago.
"Year-on-year growth has placed Queenstown as arguably New Zealand's fastest-growing destination for Australian visitors," Mr Sowry said.
Air New Zealand's aircraft were fitted with advanced navigation technology, which allowed the airline to land in Queenstown in very challenging weather conditions, he said.
"Last ski season, not a single one of Air New Zealand's 140 transtasman flights was diverted or cancelled due to poor weather conditions," he said.
Queenstown's other airline providers, Qantas, Jetstar and Pacific Blue, all said they had no immediate plans to increase flight numbers to the resort, but were always looking for opportunities to expand.
