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For some time now the Bay of Islands has been served by a mix of Eagle Air Beech 1900 and Air Nelson Q300 flights but Kerikeri will go to an all Air Nelson
Bombardier Q300 service from the 9th of February 2015. Air Nelson will offer four Q300
seat flights between Auckland and Kerikeri each weekday with three flights on both Saturdays and Sundays. Flights
will leave Kerikeri for Auckland at 6.50am, 9.40am, 1.20pm and 5.30pm Monday to
Friday, 6.50am, midday and 2.10pm on Saturdays and 6.50am, 10.10am and 4.30pm
on Sundays. Flights will leave Auckland for the Bay of Islands at 8.35am,
12.15pm, 4.25pm and 6.45pm on weekdays, 10.55am, 1.05pm and 5.55pm on Saturdays
and 8.50am, 3.25pm and 6.45pm on Sundays.
Eagle Air will operate its last flights to Kerikeri on the 8th of February 2015. Eagle Air first began operating to Kerikeri on the 1st of November 1993 when Eagle took over the service previously operated by Mount
Cook Airlines. The first Eagle service was operated by Embraer Bandeirante
ZK-MAS. Over the years Eagle have operated Bandeirante, Metroliner and Beech 1900
flights to the Bay of Islands.
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| Departing soon - Beech 1900s from the Bay of Islands! Eagle Air Beech 1900 ZK-EAH taxis out from Kerikeri on 24 July 2008 |
This will coincide with the PMR-NSN change meaning a further two beech can be retired.This will leave 11 in the schedule. A further beech replacement will occur bringing the operating fleet to 10. Two will be kept as spare. To allow for the extra Q300 the start NPE-CHC will be replaced by ATR-600. In tern the Napier Air Nelson base will close. Also within the next year the start NPL-AKL flights will be become ATR to free up a Q300
ReplyDeleteWow - big changes ahead. Certainly the larger regional centres like Tauranga, Napier and New Plymouth have seen their services rocket. Is the Beech fleet and the Beech-operated services sustainable in the long term?
ReplyDeleteYes Napiers Air Nelson base is set to close, and eventually New Plymouth's. Rumour has it the big long term goal is to eradicate the smaller bases and have just Auckland, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch bases.
ReplyDeleteKerikeri is quite a seasonal market so assume it will be only trice daily on weekdays during the quiet periods. Figured this was coming when they announced the Eagle base closure.
ReplyDeleteRegarding TRG, NPE, NPL and the like, while total seat numbers are up, the number of flights to these ports has in most cases reduced significantly, so the gains aren't huge. Auckland seems a lot quieter than it used to be during off peak periods, even though total oax numbers have increased.
Dont know where you get your figures from? I work at TRG and have found we are getting more and more flights, not less, especially over the last year
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