Originally Posted by
syrahnose
I could be wrong on this, but I did speak to an air traffic controller from the Wellington tower who said 787s could land there.
And the population is around 450k, considerably larger than Christchurch which has international services.
A 747 can land at OGG on Maui. That doesn't mean a 747 loaded up with fuel and passengers has enough runway to take off. A 787 probably can land at Wellington, but range it can go from there will be weight-restricted (read: fuel).
Delta used to fly a L1011 into Maui from DFW, but it had to then fly to Honolulu (refueling there), before it could have enough runway to make it back to Dallas w/ full passenger load.