19 May 2015

Blenheim to Napier... It's Official!



After demand from wine lovers and workers in the industry, Sounds Air will begin flying  its nine-seater Pilatus aircraft between Napier and Blenheim, two days a week, starting in August. It will only take about 35 minutes to fly from Napier to Blenheim. The little pressurised plane is superpowered to fly at 30,000 feet, cruising at 500km per hour.  The demand for this particular route came from the winery industry - people got tired of stopping off in Wellington, often with too many delays, making the flight home a long one. Should be fun for wine lovers too who want to wine and dine and go shopping shop and then fly home again all in one day. Sounds Air managing director Andrew Crawford, said the airline is hoping for four mid-week return flights between Napier and Blenheim. "The pressure has also been on for weekends as well," Crawford said. "We have taken over both the Wellington-Westport and Wellington-Taupo services that Air New Zealand pulled out of, and we were awarded the contracts. "When you fly one air service, you need two planes for maintenance purposes, and subsequently three planes for two services, so we had a spare plane and decided on the Blenheim-Napier route because we're based in Blenheim." The fare is not fixed yet but is could be about $250 each way. By flying over Wellington, travelling time will be kept to a minimum which means more time for everyone to enjoy the day. "Talking to the winery owners, there are huge synergies between Marlborough and Hawke's Bay, in terms of ownership." Wineworks in Hawke's Bay, for instance, has its biggest bottling plant in Marlborough. Dave Wenley from Wineworks said Sounds Air direct flights will save him as much as five hours a day in travelling time, once Wellington is eliminated from the loop. Neil Barber, deputy chairman of Hawke's Bay Tourism, said the flight service will be a boon for the region. "It will be great for Hawke's Bay as well as the wine industry," Barber said. Having just flown over Cape Kidnappers, John Stace, a spokesman for local group A Better Hawke's Bay said the little plane performs like a sports car on steroids. "A most spectacular single-engine aircraft, made in Switzerland, flies very high, very fast, and with a five bladed propeller it is very quiet inside and out," Stace said. Sounds Air has been operating for 30 years, and has vast experience flying in and around the Marlborough Sounds, Cook Strait, Wellington and Nelson. The company was started by Cliff and Diane Marchant in 1986. They had a vision of providing low cost inter-island transport to provide locals and tourists with easy access to the Marlborough Sounds. Since that time they have made more than 150,000 crossings of Cook Strait to their own airport at Picton and also to Blenheim, Nelson and many airstrips in the Marlborough Sounds.

16 comments:

  1. If this model is successful then there are several more opportunities in NZ. E.G NPL DUD TRG NPE NSN PMR. Any pair between these places

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  2. Definitely PMR-NSN.

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  3. There was talk of people wanting a direct TRG-PMR. :/ Not sure if that would be a flyer.....

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    1. KRA have indicated they are planning to begin PMR-TRG and NSN-PMR using almost 30 year old Saab 340A 33 seaters.

      Services they hope to begin by Christmas or just after.
      Perhaps it's with KRA that these airlines seeking an interline with should approach?

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  4. Palmerston North Airport company was pushing for that...
    Air Central flew PMR-ROT-TRG when Air NZ withdrew from PMR-ROT...
    It wasn't a flyer for either airline... however TRG is a much bigger centre now

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  5. is there any word to when these new birds will adorn that brilliant orange and albatross color scheme on their tails. let's hope they don't end up wearing those "second hand" stripes for to long. ...

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  6. I think we could see NSN-PMR, NSN-NPL and WLG-HKK in the next year or two. Don't know how BHE-NPE is going to go, would have picked NSN-NPE ahead but even that would be a route that is head scratching... good luck for them.

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    1. It's all going to come down to pricing.
      Sounds Air's fixed pricing model will not suit everyone.

      For example it's going to cost $1000 return for two people to go direct between BHE - NPE.
      This is in competition with Air NZ who offer a link via WLG at a range of frequencies 7 days a week.

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    2. I had always thought there might be a niche HKK - WLG, especially if Air NZ reduce the frequency of Trans Alpine flights to CHC. But I think Sounds Air were more thinking of GMN - WLG. It would be interesting to see how many people on a HKK flight are actually from GMN?

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    3. I would say many more are from grey than hoki. greymouth has a populations of around 10000 people vs hoki about 3000. If Greymouth had a suitable airportI believe the hokitika service would almost be non existent. There is plenty of room for a direct flight grey to welly, AWC used to do it for a very short time with rather good numbers in the Dornier 228,- all things considered. I believe many people flying out of hoki are only going to chch to connect to other places (like wellington /Auckland etc), besides its less than a 3 hour drive to chch from grey / hoki. Still Air NZ have quite a lot of capacity

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  7. Wow! 35 minutes is a rocket ship!
    The Q300 can take upto around 50 minutes NPE-WLG!

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    1. That is a complete rubbish time. A direct track at 260 TAS which is more like what it will actually do is 42 minutes, reduce that to 250 TAS with a couple of turns in the track and it comes out at 46 minutes. I suspect that will be more like the actual time.
      Don't let these newspaper articles fool you, while it may have a service ceiling of 30,000ft it will most probably cruise in the high teens.
      Have a look at the altitudes its been flying to WS, remember they claimed they were going to fly higher and faster than the B190 which in fact (to what most people who fly similar pressurised TPs knew all along) its proven to be an identical flight time at lower altitudes!

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    2. Haha Statewebro you're right on the money there ! I thought I was the only one who noticed the BS being fed to the media !

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  8. Sounds Air expanding quite fast. Reminds me a bit of Origin. Also I would say they start to compete with Air NZ by offering direct flights e.g. BHE-NPE without going through a hub such as WLG. Wonder if Big Brother already watching this development closely!?

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    1. Rest assured they will be.

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  9. If you missed Christopher Luxon's discussion of these issues for the small carriers you can still hear it at http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201754931 (paste into browser). Some interesting figures on international services too.

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