New air services for Kaitaia and Whangarei

Air New Zealand starts its new schedule of peak-time services between Auckland and Kaitaia from today.

The twice daily Monday-Friday service, which had been operating off-peak times on weekdays since December 26, will move to the new prime times of early morning and late afternoon until April 28.

The weekday services will be operated by Air New Zealand Link airline, Eagle Air using a leased 19 seat Jetstream 32 aircraft.

Eagle Air will continue to operate its Beech 1900D aircraft for the daily weekend service.

Eagle Air general manager, Doug Roberts said the double daily services introduced at Christmas had proven popular with travellers to and from Northland as well as providing good connections to other services out of Auckland.

"Our forward bookings are also looking strong for this route which confirms that additional seat capacity was needed for the peak summer months," Mr Roberts said.

The new weekday services leaves Auckland at 8.20am and arrives in Kaitaia at 9.05am.

It then leaves Kaitaia at 9.25am, arriving in Auckland at 10.10am.

In the afternoon the service leaves Auckland at 5.05pm, arriving at Kaitaia at 5.50pm.

It then leaves Kaitaia at 6.10pm, getting to Auckland at 6.55pm.

Daily service between Whangarei and Hamilton was recently introduced by Tauranga-based Sunair Aviation.

Flights leave Whangarei at 8.45am and 5pm and go on to Tauranga from Hamilton. Connections to Sunair flights to Rotorua, Gisborne, Wairoa/ Napier, New Plymouth and Wellington are available during the day.

Passenger numbers are light but Sunair owner Dan Power says this is normal at the start-up of a new route.

"We expect numbers will increase as people become aware of the service," he said last week. "Our on-going objective is to provide province-to-province air transport without having to hub through the major cities and this formula has proved successful for us over 18 years of providing air transport throughout the North Island."

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE (WHANGAREI)