While borders will open to visitors from Australia from next Wednesday, Qantas will not be resuming transtasman flights to Queenstown until May 23, followed by Jetstar at the beginning of June and finally Air New Zealand, from June 24.
Mr Luxon, who spent seven years as Air NZ’s chief executive, said the aviation sector needed time to plan for a re-entry to the resort, and opening borders did not automatically trigger a revised flight schedule.
"The problem is, the Prime Minister left it all way too late — the sector needed time to get critical workers in here, to get airline capacity in here, and just because we think it’s a great place doesn’t mean an airline sitting anywhere else in the world is going to send their ... aircraft here.
In the resort to speak to Queenstown Chamber of Commerce members yesterday, Mr Luxon said he was keen to understand what needed to happen to get the district’s economy "up and running", but believed changes to New Zealand’s working holiday visas were key.
"It’s great the tourists can start coming back. That’ll take a bit of time to rebuild, but you need to be able to have a critical workforce here to be able to support that, and that’s why I think the working holiday visa ... there’s a bit of [work] to be done there."
Mr Luxon said Australia had been marketing itself as a working holiday visa destination, and offering incentives, yet had only welcomed a third back into the country.
He believed NZ should refund the working holiday visa fee, extend the age limit from 30 to 35 and offer second, and potentially third, working holiday visas to those who had already held one.
