Eagle Airways Timetable 29 October 1985

 

Cover and schematic route map

Bargain fares and contents

Passenger information

Passenger information and standard fares

Auckland and Gisborne departures

Gisborne and Hamilton departures

Hertz and Bargain fares

Napier and New Plymouth departures

New Plymouth, Palmerston North and Rotorua departures

Rotorua, Tauranga, Wanganui and Wellington departures

Wellington departures and Southern Cross Airways

Cookson's Airline Division

Eagle Airways was one of the most successful airlines to take advantage of the 1982 deregulation of the airline industry, although its history dates back to 1969 organisationally, and 1975 for the first type of airline service.  A detailed history is available here but by 1985 it was owned by NZI Finance and already had an automated computerised reservation system, which linked to Air New Zealand, as it had grown to become a major North Island third level airline, having merged with Napier based Air Central. Eagle Airways was Hamilton based, and its largest aircraft was the Embraer Bandeirante which had 18 seats for passengers, plus a toilet, and although unpressurised, it was a significant step up from the 9 seat  Piper Chieftains or 5 seat Beechcraft Barons operated on some routes.  

This timetable highlights a number of aspects of the airline's service at the time:

• Checkin closed at 20 minutes before departure
• Baggage allowance was 16kg for a single item
• Standard fares ranged from $53 (Hamilton-Tauranga/Rotorua) to $142 (Wellington-Auckland) ($177 to $474 in today's prices exc. GST). Bargain fares ranged from $32 to $85 (seven days advance purchase)
• Children under 15 half fare, under 4yo not occupying a seat, free.
• Connecting services to  Southern Cross Airways (Auckland-Whangarei) and Cookson (Wairoa)
• Many routes hubbed through Hamilton (Auckland-Wellington was possible but a 2.5 hour flight via Hamilton and Palmerston North).

Direct routes were as follows:

• Auckland-Hamilton
• Gisborne-Hamilton
• Gisborne-Napier
• Hamilton-Napier
• Hamilton-New Plymouth
• Hamilton-Palmerston North
• Hamilton-Rotorua
• Hamilton-Tauranga
• Hamilton-Wanganui
• Napier-Palmerston North
• New Plymouth-Palmerston North
• New Plymouth-Wanganui
• Palmerston North-Wellington

What is perhaps most notable about this era was how well connected a LOT of regional cities and towns were with each other with such services, much more so than today. 

By 1988 Eagle Airways and Air Nelson had started working together, effectively enabling tickets to be sold connecting across both islands, but this was all to change later than year when Air New Zealand saw the opportunity with the disposal of its Fokker F27 Friendship fleet to acquire an efficient smaller airline to operate regional services, and bought 50% of both Eagle Airways and Air Nelson.  This saw Eagle Airways coming under the Air New Zealand umbrella, with it taking over services from Auckland to Kaitaia, Whangarei and Gisborne, and progressively took over many of the North Island Air New Zealand routes.  More Embraer Bandeirantes were acquired later supplemented by Swearingen Metroliners.  In 1993, Air New Zealand bought the remaining 50% of Eagle Airways making it a fully owned subsidiary.  The subsidiary would remain for many years, with its staff and operations subject to their own conditions and management, fitting in with the wider Air New Zealand network (as did Air Nelson and Mt Cook Airlines). The final chapter was the introduction in 2001 of the Beechcraft 1900D to replace all of the legacy Eagle Airways fleet, so Eagle Airways was the operator of the smallest aircraft in the Air New Zealand family, with 19 seats, flying to the lowest density airports.  The Beech 1900D would fly on until 2016 when Air New Zealand decided to close Eagle Airways as it could not find an economical replacement for the aircraft, and routes that could not be transitioned to the De Havilland Dash-8 were closed.

Eagle Airways had a significant presence in New Zealand airline history, which provided both access and competition to many regional centres that didn't previously exist, it was so successful its largest rival would simply buy it up and use its efficient and well honed operations to provide services to smaller airports.