Night flights in Queenstown will not be achievable by the winter of 2013, a date set by Queenstown Airport chief executive Scott Paterson.
Mr Paterson and airport board chairman John Gilks were questioned about night flights during the Queenstown Lakes District Council's finance and corporate committee meeting on Tuesday.
They revealed securing permission for the flights would not possible.
"The winter of 2013 was one that I set for the team and it's clear that it's not going to be achievable," Mr Paterson said.
He said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) needed to authorise the flights and the airport was now driving the process of promoting night flights to the authority.
"The best outcome for us at this stage is that somewhere [at the] end of the next financial year, in 2013, we are able to understand [if] night flights [are] feasible and under what conditions, particularly what infrastructure needs to be done."
The airport had permission to operate flights until 10pm, during daylight hours, and expected to have evening flights up until 10pm during the summer months.
After the meeting, Mr Paterson said he preferred to use the term "evening flights", since flights would only be using fully the airport's consented hours.
He said 6pm in July was after daylight, which the airport did not have consent for, but 6pm in summer was during daylight.
Evening flights during winter months were something Mr Paterson said the airport thought was "attractive", especially in the "middle of winter during the weekends".
He said investigation was being undertaken into what the airport would need to do to make after-daylight evening flights safe.
Former CAA spokesman Bill Sommer told the Otago Daily Times last year airlines needed to show they could operate aircraft at night and crews were properly trained.
Lighting is also an issue, as is runway width.
Air New Zealand had scheduled an evening flight during the summer months, the time of which differed depending on the day, Mr Paterson said.
"That sort of signals ... [that] it could be a toe in the water sort of thing for them."
