Mate Radich demonstrating that Kaitaia airport's old scales still work - and that he's 68kg over the standard baggage allowance.
Mate Radich demonstrating that Kaitaia airport's old scales still work - and that he's 68kg over the standard baggage allowance.
It wasn't quite as big a deal as losing the services of Air New Zealand, but the loss of Kaitaia airport's platform scales, which for years had weighed passengers' luggage, has long rankled with some in the very Far North.
The scales have now been returned, however, thanks to asix-month campaign by Far North District councillor Mate Radich and the more recent intervention of Far North Holdings, which owns Kerikeri's Bay of Islands airport, and manages Kaitaia's.
Between them they persuaded Air New Zealand that it did not own the scales, and should not have removed them when it ceased servicing Kaitaia in 2015.
The scales found their way to Kerikeri, leaving Kaitaia using an electronic set owned by Barrier Air, but now they're back where they have been for longer than anyone can remember.
Noel Thompson, the Kaitaia Travel Bureau's man at the airport from 1955 to 2007, said the scales had probably come from Auckland, and were certainly "ours."
"I'm glad it's been resolved. Pity [Air New Zealand] haven't given us our plane back," he added.
FNHL spokesman Peter Heath confirmed that the scales had been gifted to Kaitaia airport, some time after NAC became Air New Zealand. FNHL had only learned of the issue a week or so ago, he added, and had been happy to help bring about an amicable solution.
