New Zealand Airline History: Air New Zealand domestic timetable October 1986 - March 1987 Part One

This timetable is the last Air New Zealand summer domestic timetable before the introduction of competition with Ansett New Zealand. Below is a scan of all of the pages, and because there are 33 of them, I thought it prudent to highlight the key points of interest beforehand.

Under passenger information it describes that the airline operates Boeing 737s, 767s and 747s on main-trunk routes, and 737s on some provincial routes, with Fokker F27 Friendships on other provincial routes. Business class (branded Pacific Class) was only available on 767 and 747 operated services.

Check-in time for 737 and F27 services was only 15 minutes, 20 minutes for 767 and 30 minutes for 747 flights. Recall there was no domestic airline security.

Discount airfares were available under the following categories:

Epic fares (35% discount) for early purchase of fares on most F27 and many jet flights outside holiday periods
Thrifty and Super Thrifty fares on main trunk routes, at specific times outside holiday periods
30% off for senior citizens on specified flights

On board catering consisted of:

Light meals for business class passengers (767 and 747 flights) with newspapers on morning and evening flights, and complementary headsets to use inflight audio entertainment systems
Light snacks and beverages on specified services from Auckland-Wellington, Auckland-Christchurch and Wellington-Dunedin (737 services of at least 1 hour). This was Danish pastries on early morning services. Lunch and evening periods had "club" and "open-faced" sandwiches.
Cheese, biscuits and beverages served on other 737 services (except Dunedin-Invercargill) and on longer F27 routes (Auckland-Gisborne, Auckland-Napier, Auckland-Nelson, Auckland-Palmerston North, Wellington-Gisborne, Wellington-Hamilton, Wellington-Tauranga, Wellington-Rotorua and Wellington-Timaru, Christchurch-Napier, Christchurch-Palmerston North)
Fruit juice only between Wellington-Christchurch and Christchurch-Dunedin.

Sample standard airfares were:

Auckland-Wellington $140.80 ($421 in 2023 prices)
Wellington-Nelson $78.10 ($233 in 2023 prices)
Christchurch-Invercargill $138.60 ($415 in 2023 prices)

The timetable itself also includes timetables for Mount Cook Airline and Eagle Airways (by this time co-ordinating with Air New Zealand), Safeair services to the Chatham Islands, Bell Air and Southern Air.

It also includes ground transport from airports, which in almost all cases was a commercial arrangement by particular bus operators in each city and town. Palmerston North was the largest city with no scheduled service to and from the airport, with Hokitika and Westport the smallest airports with passenger services between airport and town.

Auckland had Johnson's Blue Motors operating a regular bus service every half hour for $6 ($18 in 2023 values)

Wellington had Guthrey's operating a regular scheduled bus service every 20 minutes weekdays for $3 ($9 in 2023 values)

Christchurch had the publicly owned Christchurch Transport Board operating a regular service as part of the local bus network for $2.40 ($7 in 2023 values)

Of note was a single daily bus service between Masterton and Wellington Airport, operated by Transport Wairarapa, stopping through the Wairarapa and at Upper Hutt, and returning once. Fare of $8.50 ($25 in 2023 values).

Also included is a domestic air cargo price schedule, list of Air New Zealand sales and agent offices, and a domestic route map finishing off with a Billy T. James fronted ad for Thrifty airfares.