Air New Zealand Air Points - NZ vs QF in ZQN

Someone told me the other day that NZ 737's have upgraded fog equipment that allows them to land at ZQN in bad weather when QF 737's can't. Is this true? Or was I not being told the truth.

Someone told me the other day that NZ 737's have upgraded fog equipment that allows them to land at ZQN in bad weather when QF 737's can't. Is this true? Or was I not being told the truth.
Late last year as part of QF commitment to NZ they announced that their 737 would be upgraded with this equipment. Of course whether they have or not is always a question with Jetconnect. The other issue is training and certifying their crews to use this. NZ with a larger pilot base could manage it while QF may struggle.
When QF started flights into ZQN from Australia they had a 737-800 practising there for a while.

Yes, its mostly true. Some Air NZ aircraft are capable of more accurate approaches to lower minimums. So providing the aircraft and crew are equipped/trained it should be the case.

For general information about approaches into Queenstown (ZQN) see:

http://www.caa.govt.nz/safety_info/GAPs/Queenstown_GAP.pdf

I'd always recommend flying on NZ in ZQN. They have more aircraft so more willing to risk having one stranded at a closed airport and as you commented have upgraded aircraft that allow for landing / takeoff in worse conditions.

QF more regularly diverts planes to IVC and buses people up from there. Having taken this route I can confirm it's a long drive especially when it's cold and wet outside.

About half the Air New Zealand 737 Fleet is Equipped for RNAV into ZQN, and currently the A320 is being equipped

As for the QF 737's, they MUST fly RNAV approaches on every arrival into ZQN, but have the option to change to VOR/DME then Visual (Weather providing of course)