Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will fly to Japan on a commercial flight after an NZDF plane suffered a minor fault this afternoon — the second time he has had to fly commercially this year.
The New Zealand Defence Force 757 plane blew a fuse while refuelling in Papua New Guinea. After replacing the fuse, it blew again. The Air Force are now changing the controller box to identify if that is the issue. If not, the fault could be mechanical.
Trade Minister Todd McClay, who is a member of the delegation to Japan, told reporters a decision was made to make sure Luxon was able to get to Japan on a commercial flight, which coincided along with a small delegation.
“The Air Force is working as hard as they can to make sure we’re safe and that we can be there as soon as possible.”
McClay will stay with the plane and passengers in Papua New Guinea while the Air Force works through options.
A “maintenance fault” on the plane in March saw Luxon have to take a commercial flight to Australia to attend the ASEAN conference in Melbourne. Defence Minister Judith Collins described the breakdown as “pretty embarrassing” at the time.
A spokesperson for the Defence Force earlier told 1News. it would likely only take an hour to fix the fault.
The Prime Minister is still expected to land in Tokyo later tonight.
Luxon has set high standards for both himself and the 31 business leaders he is travelling with to Japan.
Earlier, Luxon told 1News political editor Maiki Sherman that Japan would play a key role in the coalition Government’s goal of doubling exports within 10 years.
“We’ve got good exporting firms, but we really want them all to scale up and become much, much larger and become much more global firms as a result of doing that.”
Japan is already a major investor in New Zealand, which includes geothermal plants, forestry assets, tourism, and international students.
There is also interest in new and emerging areas around renewable energy, space, and climate investment.
“Particularly in space, we know there’s a lot of interest from Japan in what were doing in the space world,” Luxon said.
Japan is the fourth largest export partner for New Zealand.
However, it’s also a significant partner regarding security in the region.
“There’s huge amount of alignment and like-mindedness between the two countries and we want to work with like-minded partners on common interests,” he said.
Japan has been asked by AUKUS partners, Australia, the UK and US, to consider joining Pillar Two of the partnership looking at enhanced technology information sharing.
Luxon said he expects those discussions will be high-level.
This trip will be the first time Luxon will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
“It’s a really great opportunity to meet Kashida because he’s a key player in global politics now as well so its really helpful to have those relationships in place,” Luxon said.