Originair is extending its airline services by adding direct flights between Nelson and New Plymouth which will take approximately 50 minutes. Initially there will be eight flights a week between the two cities, taking off from September 29. The airline will be flexible around scheduling, reflecting extra demand during school holidays and long weekends. Originair managing director Robert Inglis says they are introducing the direct flights after listening to business and leisure travelers. "Currently anyone travelling between the two cities may spend lengthy periods transiting via Auckland and Wellington instead of less than an hour with direct services. We believe the Nelson and New Plymouth communities will support this service. It will appeal to travelers who want to spend a weekend in either city and to business travelers commuting for a week's work or a short stay," Mr Inglis says. The airline currently flys between Nelson and Palmerston North, a service which started in 2015 and is popular with business and leisure customers. The company's British Aerospace 18-seat Jetstream aircraft will fly the route and the company is adding another Jetatream to its operations to cover contracted charter flights, tours and maintenance coverage.
Originair is offering a special New Plymouth Introductory fare. Passengers simply enter the coupon code FLYNPL when searching for their flights online between Nelson and New Plymouth to book special fares starting from $179 one-way per-person. This introductory offer, which is limited, is for travel in October 2017.
Interesting move.
ReplyDeleteI thought so to... I thought Hamilton would have made more sense as Kiwi Regional got mid-teen loads on that sector
ReplyDeleteTrue. NSN-NPL is one Robert flew 11 years ago. Shorter overall trip for the little Jetstream.
DeleteAir NZ have only a few flights a day now on WLG-NPL versus quite a few WLG-HLZ. This makes it harder to directly compete for numbers between NPL-NSN.
Hamilton would be the largest city not connected to Nelson. But Origin said on the facebook a year ago that they were not looking at the long routes so have ruled out Dunedin in their comment. So Hamilton would be the same. I guess they could serve Wanganui next as its fairly close to Nelson
ReplyDeleteLots of gas/oil $$ in Taranaki, with people working there and living else where.
ReplyDeleteThe one route which hasn't seen competition for a long time is NSN-CHC. Could never understand why Origin hasn't tried that? With only 1 aircraft now though, will they land themselves in trouble like Kiwi did during breakdowns/maintenance?
No issue there anon, we are planning on bringing ECI back down to NSN in the next week or so :)
ReplyDeleteYes I remember seeing ECI in the airwork hangar in AKL six months ago! Hopefully all the repairs are nearly done for it.
ReplyDelete