Ansett has plans for another Queenstown jet

Press, 5 December 1988, Page 9

Ansett has plans for another Queenstown jet

By

LES BLOXHAM

travel editor

Ansett New Zealand will buy a third 8Ae146 “whisper” jet if demand for its first two, scheduled to enter service in May, meets expectations.

The airline’s chief executive, Mr John Buchanan, talked of the third jet at the inaugural ceremony for the extension of Ansett’s jet services to Dunedin yesterday.

Mr Buchanan told “The Press” later that the airline was confident it would win a large share of the available traffic on the Queenstown and Rotorua routes after the BAel46s were introduced. He said a third 8Ae146

would then be bought and this would enter service within a year. Dunedin turned on a traditional Scots’ welcome for guests with bagpipes, local whisky, and a haggis after the arrival of the 8737 inaugural flight from Christchurch. The address to the haggis was given by Mr Stan Kirkpatrick at a reception in the Town Hall. The Mayor, Sir Clifford Skeggs, described as “a sin” the fact that more than half New Zealand’s population had never ventured ~s far south as Dunedin. He said he hoped that the situation would be rectified when “competition Ansett would introduce to the region”

would lead to a lowering of airfares.

Guests were then taken on an extensive tour of the city and Otago Peninsula.

Although it was very much Ansett’s day, Air New Zealand nevertheless managed to make its presence felt. During a visit to Olveston, a gracious Edwardian home, several women wearing pointed heels were asked to remove their shoes.

They were issued slippers — Air New Zealand slippers — to protect their feet. “I didn’t think we would be walking over the competition this soon,” quipped an Ansett executive.