Jetstar is advertising flights from Wellington to Queenstown for just $7 as it looks to muscle in on the popular tourist route. Wellington is expected to benefit from the popularity of the southern tourism heavyweight, with the announcement of the low-cost direct flights. Jetstar will launch a daily flight between the capital and the resort town from December 22 with fares starting at $79. Today it is advertising flights from Wellington to Queenstown from $7 as part of a launch sale. Air New Zealand holds a monopoly on the route, with a direct flight for December 22 priced at $266, while a longer flight with a stopover in Christchurch costs $147. Tourism officials hope the competition will boost domestic tourism between the two centres and increase spending in the capital as international visitors stay in the city before heading south. Wellington City Council economy portfolio leader Jo Coughlan said the announcement was great news. It would bring obvious economic benefits and the more people that were "hubbing" through Wellington Airport the better. The next big step would be to attract an airline to operate direct flights to Asia from Wellington and the council planned to act "aggressively" to hopefully secure an agreement by 2013, she said. Positively Wellington chief executive David Perks said one of the main advantages of the announcement would be the Wellington-Queenstown route linking in with Jetstar's parent company Qantas and their OneWorld Alliance global codesharing agreement.
Air New Zealand currently runs a single ATR flight direct flight on the sectore
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