Jetstar estimates the number of flight diversions into Queenstown Airport due to bad weather will reduce from more than 10% to less than 1%, following the installation of the latest Required Navigation Performance (RNP) equipment in its entire New Zealand fleet.
The low-fare airline said yesterday it had successfully conducted trial A320 flights into Queenstown Airport and Gold Coast Airport in Australia using RNP-Authorisation Required (RNP-AR) procedures, earlier this year.
The procedures had now been applied to its existing daily direct A320 services from Auckland and Christchurch to Queenstown Airport.
The announcement came after a series of Jetstar flights were diverted because of poor weather, which inconvenienced hundreds of Queenstown passengers, since the Qantas subsidiary began services to the resort in June 2009.
Chief executive Bruce Buchanan said in a statement the introduction of RNP-AR, initially on Jetstar's domestic New Zealand services to Queenstown, would precede its broader roll-out across the carrier's A320 fleet, at a cost of up to $A10 million ($NZ12.3 million).
The technology would also allow for new, improved flight paths, which would save time.
