AirNZ weathers the storms with RNP technology
AUCKLAND – Air New Zealand’s ability to fly its 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), introduced onto six of Air New Zealand’s 737s two years ago, has now 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 15 flights that would previously have been disrupted by the wintery weather.”
RNP enables specially trained pilots to fly to lower altitudes with a more precise and efficient route into the airport, helping reduce the impact of bad weather on services.
Because of its high precision, RNP also reduces noise emissions and can significantly reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions by using much shorter, curved approaches to airports.
Queenstown is one of New Zealand’s most challenging airports due to its mountainous terrain and pilots require special training to be able to fly into the destination.
Work is underway with the Australian Civil Aviation Authority to gain regulatory approval to operate RNP into both Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and the airline is already using RNP at Port Vila in Vanuatu.
Ian Jarrett
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