Sunair may be north's saviour

Eagle Airways will not service Whakatane, Kaitaia and Westport from April next year.

Outraged locals given some hope after Air New Zealand cuts service.

A Tauranga-based operator is poised to take over Air New Zealand's cancelled regional air services from Whakatane and Kaitaia but will charge similar prices.

Sunair Aviation is confident approaches to the Far North District Council and Whakatane District Council will result in it picking up the routes from April next year after Air New Zealand's announcement that Whakatane, Kaitaia and Westport would no longer have a commuter air service outraged businesses and residents.

Buller District mayor Garry Howard was determined his town would also find a replacement carrier but expected it to take longer for Westport to find a solution. The council had contacted about five possible operators.

Sunair Aviation chief executive Dan Power proposed to run two services a day from Kaitaia and Whakatane to Auckland and said prices would be similar to those charged by Air New Zealand although details are still being finalised.

"We are not prepared to compete with Air New Zealand. They are too strong a carrier, hence we are going into Kaitaia on their departure and not before."

Sunair has been operating regional scheduled transport services for 20 years servicing Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Gisborne and Napier and Air New Zealand's 19-seat Beech aircraft would be replaced with a 12-seater Cessna caravan.

"We can give an assurance that people based in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and in the Far North that on Air New Zealand's departure they will have an air service and it will be regular and it will be twice a day. We don't believe we will be near full but we do believe that due to our more efficient cost structure and our more efficient airplanes that we will be able to turn these into profit."

The mayors of Kaitaia, Westport and Whakatane have criticised the way Air New Zealand announced the changes and said they should have been consulted first.

An Air NZ spokeswoman said: "Air New Zealand has been working closely with the key stakeholders in these towns for the past couple of years to help them understand that their air services were not performing well and to help them build customer demand."

She said Air NZ welcomed a new operator taking over the routes and it was prepared to offer them assistance to do so because it was a "good outcome" for the community.

The Herald received several emails from outraged readers.

Justine Gamble, who lives in Kaitaia, said: "It is not just one hour to Kerikeri. People have forgotten about those who live further away - some will take two hours to get to the nearest airport.

Northland Rentals owner Brian Archibald said attracting another air carrier would save his business as he had anticipated having to lay off three of his four staff once the service stopped.

Miner Graeme Cramond works in Western Australia but spends every third week in Kaitaia.

Mr Cramond said he could leave Perth on a Tuesday evening and make it home in time for morning tea.

"If the Kaitaia flight is cancelled, my wife would have a four-hour drive to come to Auckland, pick a very tired miner up and drive all the way back ..."

What it all means

What are the changes?
Air New Zealand announced on Monday that it was making changes to its regional routes including decommissioning the 19-seat fleet run by Eagle Airways after losing $1 million a month for the past two years.

Who will be most affected?
The closure of the Whakatane-Auckland, Kaitaia-Auckland and Westport-Wellington services will result in removing a regional air service from the three towns from April 2015.

Services from Whangarei-Wellington, Taupo-Wellington and Palmerston North-Nelson will also be suspended from April 2015 and the Hamilton-Auckland route will be suspended from February 2016.

What are the possible solutions?
Sunair Aviation wants to take over the services running from Kaitaia to Auckland and Whakatane to Auckland from April 2015 when the Air New Zealand service ceases. Buller District Council has approached operators about taking over the Westport service and expected to have a clearer idea by tomorrow.

Readers' views

Mike Bryan, Kaitaia school teacher
" I had a hospital appointment at 1.45pm in Kaitaia [yesterday] to have a six monthly checkup on my eye.

The specialist Dr Cohen ... flew up from our nearest big hospital in Whangarei as do several other specialists. This means that I along with hundreds of other Kaitaia locals do not have to travel down to Whangarei. The nurse who saw me ... fears that the hospital will have to cut this service as from next year."

Phil Rossiter, Solid Energy's sustainable development manager, Westport
"It's a big thing to have your pipeline cut off and it's going to be a blow to morale and confidence in a region that's already suffering. I think there will be a greater imposition on people's working lives, late night driving, early morning departures and some travel that just won't happen. Working days are likely to get much longer."

S. Rutherford of Kaitaia
"Just another kick in the guts for a poorly funded region which produces enormous agricultural wealth."

Graeme, lives in Kaitaia and works in Western Australia
"If the Kaitaia flight is cancelled, my wife would have a four-hour drive to come to Auckland, pick a very tired miner up and drive all the way back. We would then have to drive to Auckland on Sunday, or early Monday morning to get my flight back to Perth."