The chief executive of Kiwi Regional Airlines (KRA) says the business will be run from Hamilton, though the crew will be based in Nelson. The airline announced earlier this month that its crew would be in the South Island, creating 20 jobs in Nelson. Chief executive Ewan Wilson, who is a Hamilton City Councillor, said he hadn't lost faith in Hamilton airport. "What we've announced in Nelson refers to a crew base. There is a significant difference between a crew base and commercial headquarters." Wilson confirmed he would remain in Hamilton. He also said there would be other staff based in the city, but wouldn't confirm how many. He said Hamilton would not work as a crew base, "Not when you look at the route network". "The crew base needs to be where it is most sensible to swap crews in and out, and the one part of the country where our aeroplanes cross each day is in Nelson." Wilson said maintenance wouldn't be in Hamilton either, because planes would have only a 20-minute stop at the airport. "Maintenance is unlikely to happen in Nelson. I'm still determining where the final maintenance facility will be." He said maintenance would be at one of the other stops, indicating it would be at Palmerston North, Tauranga, or Queenstown. RKA had bought two Saab aircraft, which Wilson said would be enough to launch with. "We certainly have the option of getting a third, but our current plan calls for just two aircraft." Hamilton City Council's general manager of economic development Sean Muray said he wasn't up to date on KRA, but he was glad it would be operated from Hamilton. "If the central part of the business is going to be in Hamilton, that's quite good news for us."
Isn't Ewan also a Hamilton City Councillor?
ReplyDeleteYet nobody at the council is familiar or 'up today' with his plans.
Of course NZ has a as globally recognised Saab engineering provider who has over the past 20 years won many awards in their excellence for Saab workmanship - Air Nelson Technical (now Air NZ Regional Maintenance)
Air Nelson has worked on more than 22 340A examples that operated for their own airline, in addition to the sole aircraft operated by Air Rarotonga.
ANZRM are currently seeking to expand their presence in the turboprop engineering/maintenance business by attracting work for third parties, and have recently created the opportunity for 50 new jobs for Nelson.
Engineering in ZQN is completely out of the question. No way, never.
ReplyDeleteTheres perhaps space in PMR for some form of engineering work?
DeleteThe process of setting up maintenance facilities, meeting regulatory requirements, purchasing tooling and securing sufficient parts inventories could take several months to set up, perhaps a year or two to become completely reliable. Issues in this area could dramatically effect FFO and OTP
fieldair in pmr could do maintenance
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There is also helipros hangar that could be used. It looks like it could fit a saab in it
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