Flights between Queenstown and Wellington will return next week to coincide with the Queen's Birthday.
Air New Zealand, which had already resumed flying between the resort, Christchurch and Auckland, today announced flights to the capital were to start on May 28.
Air New Zealand general manager networks Scott Carr said the airline was keen to bring more New Zealanders to Queenstown to boost the tourism sector.
“We’ve been sufficiently encouraged by demand for seats into Queenstown since publishing our schedule for Alert Level 2 that we’re bringing forward the resumption of services from Wellington.
"In addition, we’ll be adding further flights from Auckland to cater for those wanting to head south over Queen’s Birthday weekend.
"The requirement for physical distancing on our services does mean that we need to also see strong demand for seats in both directions, so we hope that the additional services will also cater to Queenstown locals looking to travel north.”
Air New Zealand planned to operate a daily Wellington to Queenstown return service between May 28 and June 2, then pause, before another daily service between June 5 and 7.
From June 12, the airline said it would run three return Wellington-Queenstown services a week, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Additional services would be added once demand was proven.
