NZ tourism operators would welcome newcomer Virgin Blue

The Sir Richard Branson-owned carrier, which plans to expand across the Tasman and into other Asia-Pacific destinations, sent tender documents this week to more than 20 South Pacific airports capable of landing a Boeing 737.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive Jim Moriarty said he would welcome the arrival of a competitive airline, which could add some zip to the underused trans-Tasman route.

"Overseas, we see reasonable quality, reasonable frequency, reasonable priced airlines offering good service.

"Perhaps across the Tasman it's an area where everybody can look to improve their efficiency, which will help the airlines in the long run, help the visitors and of course New Zealanders who want to travel as well," Mr Moriarty told Radio New Zealand today.

New Zealand had shown 6 percent annual growth in visitor arrivals, with about two million people arriving each year.

More than 95 percent of visitors to New Zealand arrive by air.

Virgin Blue head of commercial operations David Huttner said New Zealand could provide a launch pad for South Pacific routes.

"There's a lot of great island routes from New Zealand where the prices are pretty high. If you look at the price of traffic from Samoa to Fiji to Rarotonga, if you had low fares on those routes it would have a tremendous impact," he told National Radio.

Virgin Blue was currently scoping out traveller habits within New Zealand, and has given airport operators a month to convince it to use their services.

"From the airports we're trying to understand what their charges are and what they can do to stimulate traffic, what sort of facilities they have in place.

"We run an operation more efficiently than traditional airlines and we need to find partners who can work with us in that way," Mr Huttner said.

The first of the international services would probably begin around the middle of next year.

However, Virgin Blue has said it would not fly to New Zealand if Qantas and Air New Zealand signed a deal for Qantas to purchase up to a quarter of Air NZ.

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