The New Zealand defence force plane ferrying the country’s prime minister to China this week has been judged so unreliable that a backup plane flew in reserve, prompting criticism of Chris Hipkins by the opposition.
The use of a backup plane follows previous mishaps involving aircraft carrying New Zealand leaders.
The New Zealand Herald first reported that a second New Zealand Royal Air Force (NZRAF) plane was travelling alongside the Kiwi delegation, which landed in Beijing early on Monday. The journey from Wellington to Beijing took 22 hours, with the RNZAF Boeing 757 requiring two stops – in Cairns and Manila – to refuel en route.
A spokesperson for Hipkins said the second plane went as far as the Philippines capital but headed south after the first 757 took off successfully.
A spokesperson for the New Zealand defence force said there was “nothing unusual with the Air Force providing backup aircraft, where available.”
“The second Air Force Boeing 757 is providing backup to the primary aircraft in case of serviceability issues … The reason is to ensure the mission is successful.” it said.
Boeing has been contacted for comment.
Former prime ministers Dame Jacinda Ardern and Sir John Key have previously become stuck during trips around the world after NZRAF Boeing 757s and Hercules aircraft broke down.
In 2022, Ardern was left stranded in Antarctica overnight after a Hercules broke down. The travelling delegation was accommodated on an Italian plane from McMurdo Sound travelling to Christchurch the following day.
A 757 broke down on Ardern’s official visit to the US in June 20233, while she also took a commercial flight home from Melbourne in 2019 after another engineering issue.
The then-defence minister, Peeni Henare, and a 30-strong delegation were stuck in Solomon Islands in August 2022, while in 2019 the former deputy prime minister Winston Peters needed a second RNZAF plane to pick him up after breaking down in Vanuatu.
A trade mission to India headed by Key in 2016 was cut short after a 757 was grounded in Townsville, forcing the prime minister and his entourage to stay the night in far north Queensland while they waited for a backup plane.
The opposition leader, Chris Luxon, a former chief executive of Air New Zealand, criticised Hipkins’ use of a backup plane on environmental grounds.
“If we’ve got a climate emergency, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have a second 30-year-old 757 trailing the other one that’s empty,” he told Newstalk ZB. “It also speaks to concerns about the reliability of those aircraft breaking down as we’ve seen in past times. We don’t need to take two aircraft to an event like that.”
The leader of the rightwing ACT party, David Seymour, said the extra emissions were “the equivalent of driving a Ford Ranger the distance of a trip to the moon three times”.
The party has pledged to take New Zealand’s defence spending to 2% of GDP, saying it would fund a replacement for the two 757s before their scheduled replacement date of 2028. Through official information requests, ACT has revealed $NZ103m ($63m) has been spend on maintaining the two aircraft since 2017.
About 100 people are part of New Zealand’s delegation to China this week, which will include the first meeting between Hipkins as prime minister and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
Joining Hipkins is Henare, now tourism minister, the trade minister Damien O’Connor, staff, media, a 29-strong group of business executives, and the national kapa haka champions.
The New Zealand delegation will also travel from Beijing to Shanghai on the NZRAF plane before leaving China on Friday afternoon.
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