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The boss of the airline that will replace Air New Zealand’s Westport service fronted local business people at a breakfast meeting in Westport this morning. Andrew Crawford heads Picton-based Sounds Air, which will take over after Air New Zealand pulls out on April 28. Sounds Air will offer more flights between Westport and Wellington than Air New Zealand provides, and a better schedule. It is New Zealand’s second-biggest airline after the national carrier. Mr Crawford told this morning’s meeting the company’s existing Cessna Caravan planes weren’t suitable for the Westport route, so Sounds Air had invested in two nine-seater Pilatus PC12 planes, each costing about $3 million. Both were formerly owned by the Royal Australian Flying Doctor Service. Development West Coast has provided a commercial loan to Sounds Air to buy one of the planes. Mr Crawford said Sounds Air would fit out the planes with new engines, new seats and new interior lining. The planes would fly faster and higher than Air New Zealand’s 19-seater Beech 1900s. The flight to Wellington would take 40 minutes – 10 minutes faster than Air New Zealand. The PC12 could fly from Westport to Melbourne in four hours and still have four hours of fuel left, he said. The new early-morning, late-evening schedule would allow Westport people to spend a full day in Wellington. The fixed price fare of $199 meant people would pay the same price, regardless when they booked. The planes would also be available for charter work and Sounds Air hoped to seal a deal with the West Coast District Health Board for emergency medical transfers. Last year 150 patients were transferred out of Westport, Mr Crawford said. Sounds Air is also speaking to Grey Mayor Tony Kokshoorn about providing a Greymouth-Wellington service. However, Mr Crawford said that would require buying a third plane. Sounds Air’s first commitment was to Westport, where it had signed a six-year contract with the Buller District Council, he said. Sounds Air would fly 70,000 passengers this year, mainly across Cook Strait, Mr Crawford said. He was accompanied by Sounds Air chief pilot Craig Anderson, who also owns the maintenance company servicing Sounds Air planes. Buller Mayor Garry Howard said flying in a PC12 was like “hopping into a Rolex watch”. “At the moment we fly in Toyotas,” he said.
Source : Westport News
Great words from the Buller Mayor! What is wrong with Toyotas??? And Rolex watch - who is to say its not a fake??!!
ReplyDeleteTwo things to point out here.
ReplyDeleteSounds air are nzs second largest airline. What happened to jetconnect ? Did they loose a few planes and a few thousand passengers ?
Secondly.
The pc12 being 10 mins faster. Rubbish. I have mates who fly the pc12 tell me it goes about 250-265kts TAS (true airspeed for the uninitiated) depending on levels conditions etc, the 1900D goes about 250-280kts TAS depending on levels conditions specific leg power setting requirements etc. So if anything the pc12 would be slower than a 1900D. But anyway, with a bit of calculating, on a 150nm leg, to be 10 minutes quicker, the pc12 would have to be traveling about 90kts faster (average) putting its cruising speeds in the mid 300s, which it cant do.
The more I read articles with this crawford involved, the more I realise he likes talking out of his rectum. Nothing my hot, unpleasant air.
Honesty goes a long way in these small communities mate.
Steady on - you don't know much about sounds air. If u knew anything about it, you would know what he's done for the company. Honesty is sounds air thing
DeleteDone WSZ-WLG with 7 pax in 37 minutes before on the Beech 1900 so nothing new there, just ill never get the $80 fare again.
ReplyDeleteI think Sounds Air need to get a new P.R person who actually knows what they're talking about.
ReplyDeletere: point one. Did you mean Jetconnect or Jetstar? It's probably fair to dismiss Jetconnect from this comparison, if only as they only fly international these days.Jetstar however...
ReplyDeleteIt seems the person who wrote this article has very little knowledge of the PC12 and its operational parameters for speed, range etc. One hopes that Sounds Air knows it better. Time will tell pretty soon.
ReplyDeleteJetconnect's route network is irrelevant. They're a kiwi company with ZK registered planes and NZ based crew. Jetstar is Australian with VH on the tail.
ReplyDeleteSuggesting a PC12 performs better than a B1900D is laughable.
"Steady on - you don't know much about sounds air. If u knew anything about it, you would know what he's done for the company. Honesty is sounds air thing"
ReplyDeleteI am a huge fan of Sounds air, their operating model and what they've done.
You sound like you know what you're talking about so I'll ask you to confirm a few things.
Will the planes and particularly the pilots ACTUALLY be BASED in Westport ?
Will the planes really have enough gas to get to Aussie once they arrive at Westport and can't get in ? (that's a hell of a lot of gas/weight)
Will they really fly at 30000ft ? Could it even get to 30,000 ft before Westport ? So will the aircraft and crew be RVSM approved ?
Are they really faster than the B1900D ? 10 minutes faster therefore averaging about 350kts ?
Will they really fly at higher levels than the B1900D ?
Will they really be conducting air ambulance operations in aircraft dedicated to airline operations ? (Considering there is already a contracted dedicated service)
As I said, I'm a fan of sounds air. But there just seems to be a number of pieces fed to the media, the wesport news in particular, that are not entirely truthful (not saying they are blatant lies) for what ever beneficial reason. Correct me if I'm wrong.
P.S. I DO know the answers to those questions. Do you ?
Oh and a DC6 engine ?? I've never seen a DC6 engine look so sleek ;-)
Is Sounds air really New Zealands second largest airline ?
ReplyDeletedont think so, sun air has a larger fleet
DeleteAre we talking about size of operators holding individual AOCs, if so Air Nelson would be number two, Mt Cook, JetConnect somewhere behind.
DeleteMount Cook soon to equal Air Nelson.
DeleteWill probably overtake as Air Nelson scales down.
Agree, Mt Cook will have 24 AC vs 23 at Air Nelson.
DeleteVery similar sized operations.
No scale downs at Air NSN in the near future, quite the opposite. 3 additional destinations for Air NSN (WAG, TUO, TIU) and a whole raft of takeover Eagle routes. Thus requiring some alteration in where those 23 units overnight.
Air NSN currently operates around 1100 flights per week across a vast, reliable network.
Carrying passengers and crucial time sensitive cargo, spanning from the upgraded services and facilities at KKE in the far north, to the soon to be brand new terminal at IVC in the far south and almost everywhere in between.
Can we please agree to only consider Part 121 operators as Airlines?
DeleteNo because eagle is 125
DeleteAs for Sunair. That joke of an outfit might technically have a larger fleet (a number of which sit idle), Soundsair has the larger number of crew, significantly larger fleet utilisation and as such a very significantly larger passenger turnover.
DeleteFacts to point out. Yes the PC-12 does have a higher service ceiling then the B1900D. However Eagle do not operate the Beech to WSZ at 25K usually around 22K.
ReplyDeleteSecondly Eagle operate the 1900 at a significantly(!!) reduced power setting. Should the 1900D be operated at the torque/temp ( possibly where the PC-12 will be operated like the Q300 is) limit you would be quite easily seeing performance almost unmatched by another turboprop in NZ. Thirdly to get to MEL from WSZ in 4 hours in a direct great circle track you would need a TAS and assuming 0 wind of in excess of 310knts...... absolute rubbish!
Finally, on a dark stormy West Coast night, descending over the mountains, of which there are many.... when the single donkey gives up.......?
Oh, but apparently PT6s never fail. I mean, if you don't count the one that happened mere weeks ago, there hasn't been a PT6 fail for aaaaages. Therefore it's 100% safe to assume one will never fail again... Two engines for any IFR flight I'm on thanks.
DeleteIf they didn't fail there wouldn't be any single engine drills, practice, checks etc in multi engine PT6 aircraft, like the beech.
DeleteBut actually to be fair, the engines them selves are pretty reliable, its mainly external factors that cause the most stoppages,- fuel issues, component issues and of course the ingestion of Ice, birds, copious amounts of water etc that few aircraft are immune from.
The PT-6 is very reliable, don't get me wrong, and the PC-12 a good aircraft. But as I said, on that dark night in heavy IMC, when one goes on the 1900D it is a relatively straightforward non life threatening issue. The same can not be said for a single engine aircraft.
ReplyDelete"Buller Mayor Garry Howard said flying in a PC12 was like “hopping into a Rolex watch”."
ReplyDeleteI doubt he will be saying that as he glides towards the mountains at night.
At just over a month to begin ...
ReplyDeleteOnly 1 seat has been sold on the inaugural flight.
Still yet to sell 1 seat on WSZ - WLG for the first 5 days of flying.