New Zealand PM takes commercial flight as air force plane develops snag

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday took a last-minute commercial flight to Australia for a summit after the air force plane was grounded due to a landing gear fault. Luxon was scheduled to depart on the NZDF 757 from Wellington Airport at 6 am on Tuesday.

However, he had to take a flight to Auckland before transferring to a commercial trans-Tasman flight to Melbourne for the ASEAN summit.

The prime minister was flying to Melbourne to attend meetings with leaders of Southeast Asian nations and the host country on the sidelines of an ASEAN-Australia summit.

During pre-flight checks, the crew of the military plane became aware of a technical fault with the nose landing gear system, a defence force spokesperson said. "The aim is to remedy the fault as soon as possible."

The Royal New Zealand Air Force has been asked to look at back-up options for when the prime minister returns on Wednesday, the spokesperson added.

The second of the two defence force Boeing 757 planes is unavailable in Christchurch for scheduled maintenance work.

This is not the first time there have been concerns about the reliability of defence force planes transporting New Zealand officials.

A back-up Boeing 757 was used for a trip to China last year in case of a breakdown when then-prime minister Chris Hipkins led a delegation to Beijing.

As leader of the opposition at the time, Luxon had criticised the move.

The pair of Boeing 757s have been in service since 2003. Defence Minister Judith Collins said the planes have a planned lifetime of another four years, but there are plans to replace them.

"The Defence Force has been doing enormously good work with very, very old planes, and they're not sustainable in the long term," she added.

Collins said a defence capability plan, due out in June, will outline the equipment and personnel needs of New Zealand's military for the next 25 years.

Christopher Luxon was earlier the chief executive of Air New Zealand, He has previously labelled this issue, 'incredibly embarrassing.'

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