The first scheduled jet landed on the Queenstown Airport runway two years after the national carrier, Mount Cook Group, started flying Boeing 737-200 hush-kitted jets to the Wakatipu.
Air NZ domestic general manager Scott Carr said the October 17, 1994 landing was "a huge leap forward, technically", and subsequent technical developments had ensured Queenstown’s connections to the world, and vice-versa, had continued to improve.
Those included the addition of Required Navigational Performance (RNP) in 2008, which allowed specially trained pilots to fly to lower altitudes with a more precise and efficient route into airports and helped reduce the effects bad weather had on services, and introducing night flights to Queenstown in 2016.
The aircraft, particularly on the Auckland-Queenstown route, had also changed, Mr Carr said.
"The aircraft are bigger, quieter, more fuel-efficient and we’re able to fly 12 to 14 flights a day at times."
In the past decade alone, Air NZ carried more than 7million passengers between Queenstown and Auckland, and this summer it will operate up to 116 return services a week — about eight flights each way, every day — increasing to 156 over the Christmas period.
Queenstown Airport chief executive Glen Sowry said close to half of all passengers through Queenstown Airport were on the Auckland flight, including, particularly over summer, long-haul inbound international visitors from Europe, North America and Asia.
"I’ve been in New York, you see all these wealthy people ... for them to be able to make a one-stop trip to Queenstown is absolutely astounding."
The service also provided an important cargo link between the lower South Island and New Zealand’s largest city, he said.
One key product was lobster, which Air NZ had been carrying since August, 2013 — it now accounted for about 250 tonnes of cargo carried north from Queenstown every year.
Meanwhile, commenting on recent Air New Zealand schedule changes, including removing the early morning and late-night flights between Queenstown and Christchurch and operating them on the smaller ATR aircraft from early next year, Mr Carr said that route had been hit "pretty hard by demand softness, particularly in government/corporate travel".
"It is unfortunate.
"We understand it makes it a little bit harder for some people to do business days in Christchurch, but the truth of the matter is we had to make those changes to make sure the services were sustainable."
However, he noted the airline had five aircraft on the ground at present, because it did not have sufficient engines for them.
"When those aircraft come back on stream, we’ll have a lot more fleet available and we’ll be able to reconsider where we deploy those aircraft.
"When they do come back, it’s gloves off for every destination in New Zealand, to be honest, for where we’ll be able to fly them."
Mr Carr did not have a date for when the aircraft would be back in service, but estimated it could take about 18 months.
