Before the Road - Flying to Haast with NAC

UPDATED March 2026

One of NAC most important routes of the late 1940s/early 1950s was the Hokitika to Haast air service in South Westland, not because it was profitable, which it wasn't, rather because Haast was not connected to the South Island road network. In the 1930s a road was built from Jacksons Bay to Haast and this road was serviced by an infrequent shipping service between Hokitika and Jacksons Bay. The air service NAC inherited from Air Travel (NZ) was a lifeline. 

On the 1st of October 1947 the N.Z. National Airways Corporation took over Air Travel (NZ)'s air service to South Westland. On the 1st Commander Frank Molloy flew de Havilland 83 Fox Moth ZK-AGM "Matuhi" from Hokitika to Haast where private mail bags were set down. His flight then continued to Okuru's Mussel Beach aerodrome where mails for Upper Okuru (private bags), Okuru and Jackson's bay were set down. 

The initial schedule for the NAC service saw flight 691 leave Hokitika at 8.00am and land, if required at Wataroa (Whataroa), Waiho (Franz Josef) and Weheka (Fox Glacier) arriving at Haast 9.20am for a 40 minute refuelling stop before continuing on to Okuru arriving there at 10.10am. The return northbound service, flight 692, left Okuru at 10.30am landing, if required at Haast, Weheka, Waiho and Wataroa before arriving back at Hokitika at 12.00 noon.

The Fox Moth was the mainstay of the Haast service until the 31st of May 1948 when Dragon Rapide/Dominies replaced the Fox Moth on the Hokitika-Haast route. With the introduction of the Dominie the extension of the service from Haast to Okuru was dropped. The last NAC flight to Haast and Okuru was flown by Commander Frank Molloy in De Havilland 83 Fox Moth ZK-AEK, Mohua on the 28th of May 1948. The first flight to Haast was flown in de Havilland 89A Dragon Rapide ZK-AHS "Mokai" by Commander Norm Suttie on the 1st of June 1948.

de Havilland 89B Dominie ZK-AKU and de Havilland 83 Fox Moth ZK-AEK at Haast in July 1948. Photo : Whites Aviation

NAC pilot Frank Molloy refuelling de Havilland 83 Fox Moth ZK-AEK at Haast in July 1948.
Photo : Whites Aviation

At this time the Corporation was evaluating a twin-engined four-seater Miles Gemini monoplane, which it had bought at a cost of more than £6000 for possible use on the South Westland service. NZNAC envisaged that the Gemini would also be suitable for use as a light freighter or as an air ambulance. Miles M65 Gemini 1A  ZK-AQO (c/n 6472) subsequently arrived in Hokitika in early 1948. The Press reported on the 15th of July 1948 that the Gemini bought by the National Airways Corporation at a cost of more than £6000 for possible use on the West Coast, has not yet been placed in service. The aircraft, which arrived in New Zealand nearly six months ago, is still in the corporation’s hangar at Hokitika, and has not been flown for more than 50 hours. The aircraft was subsequently sold. Meanwhile, the NAC service to Weheka (Fox Glacier) was short-lived and by August 1948 it no longer appeared on the NAC timetable.

Instead, in July 1948 NAC’s Hokitika operation received a “new” de Havilland 83 Fox Moth, ZK-ASP (c/n 4097). ASP wasn’t exactly new, however, as it was Air Travel’s original aircraft, ZK-ADI that had been impressed into the RNZAF as NZ566. 

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 June 1948

The Dragon Rapide/Dominie service to Haast had only been operating just over two months when on the 9th of August 1948 Hokitika's Southside airfield was closed to de Havilland Dragon Rapides and Dominies due the runway's grass surfaces and their susceptibility to flooding. The de Havilland 83 Fox Moths had to once again provide all the West Coast services south of Westport including the Haast service and enabling Okuru to return to the NAC network. Services terminated at Haast from sometime in late 1949/early 1950.

From the August 1948 NAC timetable showing the thrice weekly scheduled service to Haast 

The "new" Fox Moth ZK-ASP wasn't in service long before having a mishap on the 30th of October 1948. The 1st of November issue of the Greymouth Evening Star reported on the air accident at Haast... One of the two planes which operate the daily air link between Hokitika, Greymouth and Westport, which is the southern terminus of the North Island service, crashed into a fence at the Haast aerodrome on Saturday morning when it failed to rise during the take-off. Though the pilot and two passengers escaped unhurt, the plane suffered some damage, and will be out of commission for a period. The plane, a Fox Moth (ZK-ASP) operated by the National Airways Corporation, had completed the first leg of the flight from Hokitika to South Westland and back, and was taking off from the Haast aerodrome about 9 o’clock when it crashed into a fence at the end of the runway. The machine’s undercarriage was torn off and the propeller and wing damaged. The pilot of the plane, which was carrying freight, was Commander G. G. Barnett, and he had two passengers, but all escaped injury. The longest runway on the aerodrome, which is regularly used by planes on the South Westland service, is 3675 ft, and normally provides planes with ample room in which to become airborne, but following the heavy soaking the ground has had from rain during the past few weeks, it was very soft on Saturday and, as a result, the plane was unable to take off before reaching the boundary. Officers of the National Airways Corporation at Harewood and an inspector of the Civil Aviation branch of the Air Department Inspected the damaged plane at Haast yesterday. Pending the repairing of the damaged aircraft, the South Westland and Hokitika-Greymouth-Westport services will both be conducted by the one remaining Fox Moth plane stationed at Hokitika, which will leave Hokitika earlier to fly to Haast and back, arriving back at Hokitika shortly before 11 o’clock instead of 12.10 as usual. The plane will then leave for Westport about 11 o’clock as usual.

Meanwhile the importance of the Haast service continued to find new customers. As well as being a life line for Haast residents it also brought in the doctor and provided air ambulance services to the hospital at Hokitika. The 1st of July 1949 issue of the Bay of Plenty Beacon records the Anglican vicar of South Westland using the service for the first time. The Vicars of Ross, South Westland, in the past have had to use horseback, or in later days, since the Franz Josef Glacier tourist traffic has opened up the roads thus far south, the motor car, to get within reach of their scattered parishioners. Recently the present Vicar, the Rev. K. O. Bathurst, decided to use the plane service to get to his jumping-off; place. He landed from the plane at Haast aerodrome and rejoined it at Okuru, and was home for tea, after a five days’ visitation that previously ran into a week or two.

NAC's de Havilland DH83 Fox Moth ZK-AEK at Haast in August 1949.
Photos : Whites Aviation

The Haast service from the NAC timetable effective July to September 1949

The Dominie returned to Haast on the 14th of December 1950, albeit temporarily, when a National Airways Corporation Dominie flew from Dunedin's Taieri Airport to Haast to bring Ministry of Works employees out for the holiday period. After picking up its passengers it flew to landed on the new aerodrome at Hokitika. Three trips were made.

Mail and freight was the mainstay of the Haast service but in spring each year large amounts of whitebait were flown north from Haast. The Hokitika Guardian of the 10th of October 1951 reported on a good run and canning activities at Haast and Hokitika... A large run of whitebait in South Westland rivers necessitated an additional flight to Haast to-day by an aircraft of the National Airways Corporation. A further quantity was brought north by Mr D. Nolan in his private plane. Mainly as a result of excellent runs in the Cascade and Maori rivers in South Westland during the last few days, the canning factory owned by Messrs Nolan Bros. has been in operation for the first time this season. No canning operations have so far taken place at Hokitika. 

The new Hokitika airport was finally opened in December 1951. In the months following Ministry of Works employees were engaged to resurface the Haast aerodrome prior to the reintroduction of a regular Dominie. The grassed portion of the runway was graded off and remetalled. Meanwhile, on the 26th of March 1952 de Havilland Dragon Rapide ZK-AHS, which had been operated by Air Travel (NZ) between Hokitika and Nelson was flown from Auckland to Hokitika and resided in the same hangar where it was serviced and housed for a number of years at the Southside airport. 

Before and after the upgrading of the Haast aerodrome. Above, the grassed aerodrome on 25 May 1951. Photo : Whites Aviation

A much later glimpse of the Haast aerodrome after the construction of the Haast Bridge. Photo : Dawber, A R :Photographs of the West Coast Region. Ref: 1/2-116223-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23167713

The "Dominie" service resumed on the 31st of March 1952. On the following day the Hokitika Guardian of the 1st of April 1952 carried a report on the first flight. 

Under the National Airways Corporation's amended timetable, which came into operation yesterday, Dominie aircraft will now fly a thrice-weekly service to Haast, leaving Hokitika at 8 a.m. and returning at 11 a.m. Under this new timetable it will be possible for passengers leaving Haast to connect with all North and South Island services, including Auckland, Palmerston North, Blenheim, Nelson, Westport and Christchurch. Connections for the North Island leave Hokitika at 11.30 a.m. daily. This is part of a Coast-wide revision of aircraft schedules with which will be incorporated the N.A.C.'s decision to use Dominie aircraft as a feeder service to Westport, connecting there with Lodestars for Wellington. The Dominie has seating accommodation for six persons. An "as-required' service will be run to the smaller dromes of Whataroa and Franz Josef. Through the courtesy of the National Airways Corporation our reporter accompanied the aircraft on the initial flight to Haast and here gives some impressions or the trip. 

This was one day of the week I had no trouble getting out of bed. I had been looking forward to the trip for weeks but was a little crestfallen when I saw that the sky was overcast and visibility none too good for our journey. Our taxi picked us up - us being Mr R. Nossiter Traffic Manager of N.A.C. at Hokitika - and we arrived at the Hokitika Airport some 20 minutes before the aircraft arrived from the Southside Airfield. There were two passengers also bound for the Haast on a hiking trip so I spent the intervening time idly chatting to them while awaiting the plane. 

It arrived within minutes and after mail and stores had been stowed aboard and one or two formalities completed we were ready for the take-off. Our pilot for the trip was Captain F Molloy, veteran pilot of many spheres and skyways. Seated in a forward position with camera slung around neck and pad on knee, I took stock of my surroundings as we revved along the field and executed a perfect take-off. We made a half circle over the 'drome and then headed away towards the mist-shrouded south. Below Hokitika was still somnolent as we winged over the town; over the straggling ribbon-like threads of the Hokitika River as it went winding to meet the Tasman, breakers in a surge of snowy spray and spume. The sea was a dull grey in the chill morning air as we crossed the grassy tussocks and tree-clad slopes below... and so over the sea streaked here and there with patches of dirty brown, and watching the breakers incessantly pounding the log-strewn beach. And further back the dim blue, bleak outlines of the Southern Alps were just discernible as shadows through the veil of low-lying cloud and mist. 

Thin streams of smoke heralded our approach to Ross - almost before I had time to realise we were airborne; a few seconds over the township with its Lilliputian houses and a few curious faces cast skywards as our engines broke the still morning air. I say curious but this is only presumption on my part for the figures were but specks in the world below. The twin engines of  the plane roared in a comforting cacophony of ease and power as on southwards we winged. The land below, I thought, has known comparatively little of man's exploitation... cut up by rivers, serried by lagoons and creeks and all held in the protective cradling lap of the mountain sentinels behind. A long crescent-shaped bay, bordered by almost virgin forest unfolded before our gaze, and below, with the sun striving to break through the cloud, the waters turn from dull grey to vivid green. And long tapering trails of seaweed turn the surface into a semblance of a giant’s palette. 

As we passed over of sheer bluff jutting out to sea we were caught in a series of air pockets that tossed us up and down like a feather in a breeze, but this lasted for but a few seconds and the plane resumed her even tenor. We  saw a lone sawmill below presenting a hive of activity. The forest here was cleared where the miller had taken his toll; cleared as if some mighty power had lain the timber low with a gigantic scythe. What a wonderful, fantastic patchwork landscape unfolded before us as we headed southwards. We crossed a river - I know not the name of it - that was so multifarious in its tributaries that its intricate byways formed a maze of sand and water. And bordering this, nestling amid the forest pines, a thousand and one lakes dotted the green of Mother Earth’s bosom like so many gems, reflecting the trees in their peerless depths. We hailed and farewelled the coast many times as our plane headed towards Haast; we passed over a bay with waters of an incredible green that surged up to the shore and then fell back in the never ending motion of the sea. 

The silent sentries that divide Westland and Canterbury caught the noise of the engines and echoed it back and forth across the lonely valleys and glens of their mountain retreat. We had completed over half our journey when we espied the Franz Josef Glacier and though visibility was still bad we managed to get a good look at its silent splendour… a waterfall frozen and crystallised in the aeons of time; a thing of beauty, coloured with hues that Titian himself could not have dreamed about, cascading down a cleft in the cliffs; a mecca of tourists the world over; an object of art created by the Supreme Artist that we mortals can only gaze and gasp in awe at its silent majesty. Truly it must be one of Westland's finest sights. The kaleidoscope of river and forest, mountain and stream moves swiftly before us. We came upon a magnificent three-mile-long beach of golden sand, unlittered with logs or flotsam, that many a capital city would be justly proud of and which terminated abruptly in a rocky promontory. 

But around the next point - only a stone's throw from this beach - was a bay studded with reefs and slime-covered rocks, a grim deterrent to coastal vessels that may drift too close. The pilot told me that around the next bay, known as Seal Point, we would see hundreds of seals basking in the surf. But whether they knew we were coming or not I do not know, for when we reached the spot there were only a few of the denizens of the deep disporting themselves on the shore. We were now within minutes of our destination and a thick white mist had almost completely enveloped the slopes below and we could only occasionally see a gaunt skeleton of a tree standing out like a silent wraith; the scene was one of melancholia and mournful meres. 

The Haast Airfield was now in sight and we circled around a hill that might have been a massive plum duff with snow like the proverbial white sauce running from its summit in straggling fingers of white. A small knot of people had gathered to meet the plane as we taxied into the refuelling point. The mail and stores were quickly unloaded and while the plane was refuelling I took the opportunity to chat to same workers in that lonely area. I remember thinking how they must look forward to receiving their mail and newspapers. Most of us are so accustomed to waking up and finding the paper on the doorstep, but I wonder how many of us realise what it means to the outback settlers who are so far removed from all the modern amenities we enjoy - and take so much for granted. It seemed to me also that this land has changed but little since the dawn of time but now with the advent of a fast convenient air service linking the "outback" with civilisation the next decade may well prove and shape the future of South Westland -- the "Cinders" of the "Cinderella" province. 

NAC's route map from the timetable effective 31 March 1952

de Havilland 89B Dominie ZK-AKU Tawaka at Haast. Photographer unknown

The arrival of the DC-3 service into Hokitika meant the Dragon Rapide/Dominies could be released to fly the South Westland services and this allowed the retirement of the Fox Moths. ZK-AEK was the first to be retired in March 1953, ZK-ASP followed in December 1953. The upgrading of the Franz Josef airfield allowed the retirement of the Fox Moths with ZK-AGM holding the honour of being the last NAC Fox Moth which was retired from regular airlines service on the 28th of February 1954. The Fox Moth had pioneered aviation in South Westland and had proved a great workhorse for connecting the Haast to the rest of New Zealand.

Farewell to the Fox Moth - de Havilland 83 Fox Moth ZK-AGM photographed at Hokitika in early 1954 as the type bowed out of the NAC fleet. Well done good and faithful servant!

From June 1954 NAC added an extra flight each week on the Hokitika-Haast route. Flights were operated on four days of the week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.

The Press of the 4th of August 1955 reported on the forthcoming Wataroa-Haast/Okuru rugby match... So that the annual Rugby match between Wataroa and Haast-Okuru can take place, a special airlift of footballers will commence on Friday afternoon, between Franz Josef and Haast. After the N.AC. Dominie has completed the trip to Westport it will fly to Waiho. where it will pick up the first six footballers and take them to Haast. The aircraft will return to Waiho, where it will spend the night, and on Saturday it will make another two trips to Haast with the remaining 12 passengers. The 18 players will be returned in three trips on Sunday.

A feature of the Haast service was the annual whitebait season. On the 2nd of November 1955 the Evening Post reported over 100,000lb of whitebait were flown out of South Westland during October, according to a conservative estimate by a National Airways Corporation official. NAC flew 52,592lb from Haast to Hokitika during the month on the scheduled service, and on 38 special charter flights. At least three other aircraft are busily engaged in flying whitebait to Hokitika, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill.

The Press reported on a 10th of July 1956 proving flight to ascertain the suitability of an airstrip at Milford to be used for regular air services was made by officials of the Civil Aviation Administration this week. The special flight, made in a Dominie plane, may herald future tourist traffic to the Milford Sound area by air. The Dominie took three officers of the administration on its flight. The men spent two hours at the Milford aerodrome discussing the possibilities of its use by Dominies, which would fly from Hokitika to Milford by way of Haast. No decision was announced after the inspection but an early announcement is expected. The agent of “The Press” at Hokitika (Mr M. Saunders) gave the pilot of the Dominie (Captain F. Molloy) two copies of “The Press.” The manager of the Milford Hotel who received the papers said it was the first time a city newspaper had been delivered at the hotel on the day of its issue.

On the 13th of July 1956 the Evening Post reported further on a possible Milford Sound service. Following a successful charter flight, the National Airways Corporation, under a charter from the Tourist and Publicity Department, intends to operate a service from Hokitika and Haast. An NAC Dominie will fly once a week from Haast - in less than an hour - and if the venture is successful another Dominie will be based at Hokitika for additional flights. The flights will operate till further notice. The first on demand charter service was operated on the 25th of July 1956 from Hokitika to Haast and Milford Sound and return was flown by Captain Frank Molloy in Dominie ZK-AKY. The charter service never appeared in the NAC timetables but it was advertised in national newspapers.

Evening Post, 11 August 1956

The Press, 23 August 1956

For some years Queenstown-based Southern Scenic Air Services Ltd had been keen to take over NAC's South Westland service. By mid-1956 agreement was finally reached with Southern Scenic Air Services Ltd for them to take over NAC's South Westland air service which was to be handed over to a subsidiary of Southern Scenic Air Services’, West Coast Airways Ltd. 

Friday the 16th of November 1956 marked the final day of NAC’s scheduled air service to South Westland. On the following Monday the service was taken over by West Coast Airways with their inaugural flight being operated by de Havilland DH89A Dragon Rapide ZK-AHS on a Hokitika-Haast return service on the 19th of November 1956.