29 April 2015

Local Coverage of Final Air NZ Service to KAT


Use it or lose it - that's the stark warning to Far North residents as Great Barrier Airlines launches its three-times daily service from Kaitaia to Auckland today. The airline replaces Air New Zealand, which took off from Kaitaia airport for the last time at 10am yesterday. The national carrier also canned its direct Whangarei-Wellington flights. Far North Holdings boss Andy Nock, whose council-owned company operates the airports at Kaitaia and Kerikeri, warned people not to take the new service for granted. "We can't expect Great Barrier Airlines to subsidise our air links with Auckland so it's up to us all to make the route a viable one." A scheduled air service between Kaitaia and New Zealand's biggest market was vital for economic development in the very Far North, he said. "We need to use it or we'll lose it." Great Barrier Airlines will use a 12-seat Cessna Grand Caravan 208B aircraft it bought especially for Kaitaia route with a nine-seater Piper Chieftain as a back-up. The new service promises to be better than Air NZ's with more frequent departures and a flight leaving at 7.30am on weekdays. One of the main gripes with the Air NZ service was that the first flight left too late for business people to get a full day in Auckland. Great Barrier Airlines general manager Murray Pope said he was "hopeful we can pick up the baton and run with it, and follow on the good work that was initially done by Air NZ". The inaugural flight will leave Kaitaia at 2pm today, return about 5.30pm, and depart again at 7pm. Air NZ will continue to fly the Kerikeri-Auckland and Whangarei-Auckland routes using the 50-seat Bombardier Dash 8 Q300. Meanwhile, Air NZ spokeswoman Emma Field said the last direct flight from Whangarei to Wellington had taken off on April 3 - with only seven customers on board. "Unfortunately, some routes such as Whangarei to Wellington were struggling to support a 19-seat service and simply not economically sustainable."


Source : 

6 comments:

  1. I haven't seen anything to say they've acquired the aircraft, so question is, have they?
    I rather suspect right now, not. Don't mind being told I'm wrong....

    ReplyDelete
  2. I haven't seen anything to say they've acquired the aircraft, so question is, have they?
    I rather suspect right now, not. Don't mind being told I'm wrong....

    ReplyDelete
  3. From what I understand they have leased one until there one arrives... First GBA flights done in a Pa31... presumably RDT.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And subsequent flights flown with RDT but no schedule pattern emerging yet!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I always wondered how WRE - WLG survived as long as it did. The service could not take a full load of pax due to weight issues, and the issues with WREs runway. It was always so expensive for this reason. If you could book a WRE - WLG via AKL with a 20min transit (not uncommon) it was only 10 mins longer than flying direct on the Beech!! 1hr45mins crammed on a 1900D with no FA definitely did not have major passenger appeal. WRE is still well served from AKL on the Q300, 3-4 daily flights from memory

    ReplyDelete