Air NZ boasts better equipment

AIR New Zealand reports its ability to fly domestic and international customers into and out of Queenstown over the busy winter season has been enhanced with 18 aircraft now fitted with advanced navigation technology.

Required Navigation Performance (RNP) was introduced onto six of Air New Zealand's 737s two years ago, with the initiative so successful that it has now recently been extended to the airline's A320 aircraft, making it the first airline in the world to have an entire A320 fleet RNP enabled.

Air New Zealand General Manager Airline Operations Captain David Morgan says RNP has been used to assist domestic jet arrivals and departures into Queenstown more than 2100 times. Without the use of RNP, at least 150 services would have been cancelled, significantly delayed or diverted.

"In the past two weeks we've used RNP around 50 times, enabling at least fifteen flights that would previously have been disrupted by the wintery weather."