The 1990s were perhaps the decade of peak domestic airline competition in recent New Zealand history, not only did Ansett New Zealand offer solid competition on the main trunk, supplemented on what was the main "tourist" route of Auckland-Rotorua-Christchurch-Mount Cook-Queenstown, but smaller airlines provided vigorous competition on a range of routes, notably Wellington-Nelson and Wellington-Blenheim. Origin Pacific Airways would prove to be competitor not only on the trunk but on regional routes as well,
Origin Pacific came out of Robert Inglis and Nicki Smith, who had previously founded Air Nelson in 1982, which they sold 50% to Air New Zealand in 1988 and the remainder in 1995, with the proviso that they could not start up another airline in New Zealand for two years. So in 1997, they started up an airline!
A base was set up in Nelson, with four BAe Jetstream 31s focused on the charter market, but in April 1998 scheduled services commenced, initially being contracted to operated the Associated Air Paraparaumu to Auckland service.
This timetable, covering July 1998 shows the airline operating direct services between Auckland and Wellington, Wellington and Christchurch, Christchurch and Palmerston North, and Nelson and Palmerston North.
As is amply described in 3rd level blog, the airline's trunk services were not sustainable against the competition of Air NZ and Ansett NZ, so it shifted focus to regional services. Nelson, Palmerston North and later Napier, Hamilton and New Plymouth gained services, all competing with Air NZ. With the collapse of Ansett NZ and replacement with Qantas, it entered into codeshare agreement in 2001, with Origin Pacific helping to feed Qantas's mainline (as well as international) services. Ultimately competition proved too tough, and with Qantas ending codesharing in 2004, the airline ceased operating scheduled services in 2006, and wound up later that year. 3rd Level Blog notes that the end of the Qantas codeshare saw a 40% drop in traffic (and Qantas ending its codeshare had a close alignment to the interest promoted by the Government of the day, especially Finance Minister Michael Cullen, in Qantas having a significant ownership stake in Air New Zealand). Quite simply, without that main trunk network and international feeder support, and support from customers in the regions, it was impossible for Origin Pacific to remain commercially viable.
Originair was later set up by Robert Inglis, and remains a small scale airline based in Nelson operating scheduled services to Hamilton, Palmerston North and Wellington, and between Palmerston North and Hamilton.
