Quuenstown skydiving company NZOne is in a dispute with Lakes Environmental over whether it is operating in compliance with its resource consent.
The company has applied to the Queenstown Lakes District Council to remove restrictions on the number of flights it can have a day.
The company, at a hearing in Queenstown this week, was seeking that the application be non-publicly notified.
Under its existing resource consent, the company is allowed a maximum of 35 flights a day at its airstrip at Remarkables Station, Kingston Rd, Queenstown.
It is seeking to remove the restriction and replace it with a limit on the amount of noise generated on a weekly average.
The condition sought says the noise from aircraft operations should not exceed 50dBA at any nearby Jack's Point residential section or at the Jardine Homestead.
A report by acoustic engineer Chris Day said the company was operating a quieter aircraft than it was when resource consent was first granted.
He said 140 flights a day in the quieter aeroplanes created the same amount of noise as 35 flights a day in the original aircraft.
Lakes Environmental planner Wendy Rolls, in a report, recommended the resource consent be publicly notified because the adverse effects on the environment would be more than minor.
Ms Rolls said NZOne was not operating in accordance with its resource consent by not flying the aircraft it was consented for most of the time.
Under the variation, the company could effectively operate 980 flights a day.
A council-commissioned acoustic report by Stephen Chiles raised concerns about the accuracy of the data and modelling techniques used by the company, she said.
The variation would also affect the area's visual amenity with more aeroplanes and parachutes visible, she said.
"The proposed change could result in continuous aircraft or parachutes in the air in this location, meaning that from certain angles the views would always be intruded into by either planes or parachutes," she said.
Counsel for NZOne Pru Steven said it was "absurd" to interpret the consent in such a way as to prevent the company from flying more modern, quieter aircraft.
She said the company was investigating buying a larger plane with even lower noise levels.
"The investment will not likely be made if NZOne is required to pursue an expensive, protracted and uncertain consent process resulting from an unjustified notification of this application, and ongoing dispute over what is the proper scope of its consent," she said.
The prospect that the company could achieve a total of 980 trips a day with two aeroplanes defied sense and logic.
Ms Steven said the effects on the environment would be no more than before the application did not need to be publicly notified.
Commissioner David Whitney reserved his decision.
