Busy summer skies fly

More flights to and from Asia, combined with more domestic flights, have led to New Zealand skies’ busiest summer on record.

State-owned air traffic control provider Airways said yesterday that there were an extra 315 jet movements a week this year, mostly to and from Auckland.

But for the summer period specifically, air traffic volumes were reaching record levels, up 11 per cent on last year, and 18 per cent on two years ago.

Air traffic volumes measured not just the number of aircraft movements, but also weights and distances flown.

It said the rise came from an increase in both domestic and international traffic.

Internationally, the growth was coming from an additional 87 flights arriving from Asia each week. Domestically, Jetstar’s regional expansion and a change to Air New Zealand’s fleet had provided the increase.

Airways chief executive Ed Sims said airlines had been moving to larger aircraft for nearly a decade, which meant more passengers and goods were being transported through New Zealand’s airspace.

This was reflected by an expected 50,000 jet aircraft movements between January and March this year, up from a low of 42,000 in 2012. Overall, there were about 280,000 aircraft movements over summer each year.

‘‘Aside from a short spike during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, jet aircraft movements haven’t reached these levels since 2008, ahead of the worst impacts of the global financial crisis,’’ Sims said.

‘‘The Asia-pacific region in particular is experiencing unprecedented levels of air traffic growth – this is great news for New Zealand which benefits from greater tourism and trade over the long term.’’

Sims said the aviation industry had responded well to the extra air traffic, and delays had reduced from an average 31⁄2 minutes per flight between takeoff and landing in 2007, to about 20 seconds this year.

‘‘Investments in the modernisation of New Zealand’s airspace as well as strong partnerships between airlines, airports and air traffic control are helping to manage this extra demand.’’