Kiwi Air timetable March 1985 - giving Tokoroa and Ohakune airline services

 

KiwiAir timetable 18 March 1985

Kiwi Air timetable 18 March 1985

In 1985 KiwiAir started flying, headquartered at Paraparaumu, but with a schedule primarily to serve the skifields near Ruapehu (going to Karioi airfield, listed as suitable for Ohakune, Raetihi, Taihape and Waiouru, but now inactive). The key routes were Wellington to Ohakune and Auckland to Ohakune via Tokoroa, presumably because the range to fly from Auckland was insufficient (fares were apparently not sold between Tokoroa and Ohakune). The objective was to cater for ski field business, with fares to reflect this, but the airline was not a success.

3rdlevelNZ describes the brief history of KiwiAir.

Great Barrier Airlines timetable August 1984

Great Barrier Airlines timetable 1 August 1984

Great Barrier Airlines timetable 1 August 1984

Unlike many of the small airlines I have published timetables for, Great Barrier Airlines still exists, albeit now Barrier Air.  Most recently Barrier Air took over the Auckland-Kaitaia route after Air NZ abandoned it, and it flies to Whitianga, as well as services between Great Barrier and Tauranga, and notably flights to Great Barrier from North Shore Airport at Dairy Flat. 

In 1984 Great Barrier Airlines was very much about providing a faster service between Auckland and Great Barrier Island. As with others, I won't repeat the excellent history of the airline published at 3rdlevelNZ which has much more detail about the origins and growth of the airline. 

This timetable depicts services to two Great Barrier airports at Claris and Okiwi. Services to Okiwi ceased in 2016, as Claris is the main airport on the island. Okiwi did not have a sealed runway at the time of this timetable.

At the time, Great Barrier Airlines had introduced the Britten-Norman Islander aircraft (depicted on the front page), an unpressurised small airliner with capacity for nine passengers (and still in production!). 

Notable is the blanking out of the price ($47) when I picked up the timetable, no doubt because the long-running wage and price freeze of the previous Muldoon Government had come to an end.

Motueka Air timetable 1985

 

Motueka Air Timetable 9 December 1985

Motueka Air Timetable 9 December 1985

Before Air Nelson was Motueka Air Services Ltd which in 1984 launched flights from Motueka to Wellington, a route which had no competition from Air New Zealand.  It saved Motueka residents from a drive to Nelson Airport, although in recent years that drive has significantly improved due to opening of the Stoke Bypass in Nelson and the Ruby Bay Bypass shortening the highway route between Motueka and Nelson. The airline notably also flew from Motueka to Takaka (a one hour drive) connecting with services to Wellington. It operated Piper Aztecs between Motueka and Wellington, but only a Cessna Skyhawk from Motueka to Takaka.

 3rd Level New Zealand has the history of the airline.  The airline eventually interlined with Ansett New Zealand. The timetable depicts a double-daily service to Wellington on weekdays and one daily on Saturday and Sunday. 

By 1988 Motueka Air merged with Air Nelson (which was founded by the same owners), but services between Motueka and Wellington terminated in 1996 when the service was sold to Associated Aviation in Paraparaumu. 

Above is the airline's fourth timetable, and at the time the airline reportedly had a 67% load factor.  Today Motueka does not appear to have a scheduled airline service, probably because the driving time to Nelson Airport makes it much less compelling as an option.  However Takaka does have a service to Wellington and Karamea with Golden Bay Air.

Last Safe Air Argosy

Last Safe Air Argosy flight

Straits Air Freight Express (SAFE Air) was a mainstay of cross Cook Strait air services for decades.  Part of its service over the years is the little known New Zealand Railways Air Services which survived until 1983, but SAFE Air was a key air freight provider beyond that. In 1972 SAFE Air was bought by the National Airways Corporation (NAC), so it was inherited by Air New Zealand.  The Argosy fleet operated from 1968 primarily longer distance freight flights, and for some time (1982-1990) operated passenger services to the Chatham Islands with a custom built pressurised passenger capsule. 

As a Wellingtonian, the sound of the two Armstrong Whitworth Argosy's was a mainstay of SAFE Air services, distinct from the older noisier Bristol Freighters, with their distinct appearance and gentle drone. 

Coast Air - Giving Greymouth a connection

 

Coast Air timetable 01 October 1986

Coast Air timetable 01 October 1986 including fares

In the heyday of domestic airline competition, Coast Air sought to take advantage of Greymouth's small airport to provide a direct connection to Christchurch (at a time when the other options were a rail service with very basic rolling stock, or SH73 which was threatened with closure over winter). As usual, the 3rd Level New Zealand blog has an excellent post on its history which I shall not repeat here.

This timetable from 1 October 1986 depicts the airline operating a double daily (weekday) service between Christchurch and Greymouth (Greymouth Airport is a small airport which has not had scheduled airline service since 2008, and has not had scheduled services from Air NZ and its predecessors), and also between Nelson and Christchurch.  At the time it was using a DeHavilland Twin Otter with 20 seats, which today would require one flight attendant to be on board as well.  

A Twin Otter with Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) capabilities is excellent for the short runway at Greymouth, but with fixed undercarriage and no pressurisation, it was slower than the Fokker F27 Friendships Air NZ was operating at the time.  This meant fares between Nelson and Christchurch would have to reflect a slower schedule (25 minutes more flight time scheduled) and it would have been less comfortable and more vulnerable to adverse weather conditions than the pressured F27. 

The rest of the story on 3rd Level New Zealand is worth a read, as the airline eventually closed in October 1988, in part due to Air NZ replacing its 48 seat F27s with 19 seat Metroliners and increasing the frequency of its Hokitika service.

Finally, note the airfares. Christchurch to Nelson at $70.91 and $84.55, why the odd figures? Because it is really $78 and $93 AFTER GST, which was only introduced that year (so the prices are pre-GST).  Today Air NZ operates up to eight return flights a day on this route. Fares on say 16 June 2023 range from $84 (seat) to $292 (flexirefund). Updating Coast Air's prices to today, it would be about $228 to $249 (noting GST is 50% higher at 15% today). So it may be fair to say prices are in real terms on the only route still operating are slightly lower than what Coast Air was offering in 1986. 

Air Nelson first timetable

Air Nelson's first timetable December 1985

Air Nelson's first timetable December 1985

In 1985, a hitherto largely unknown airline emerged, Air Nelson Ltd, a subsidiary of Motueka Air.  This is its first timetable effective 16 December 1985, introducing new competition on the Wellington-Nelson route, notably with Air New Zealand. Note a 15 minute checkin time, with two return services each weekday and one each on Saturday and Sunday.  Air Nelson also notes it offers fares connecting to nine other airports in the North Island via other third level airline, Eagle Air.   It was operating a Piper PA-31 Navajo with 6 seats for passengers.

I'm not going to repeat the excellent history of Air Nelson published here. It notes that Air Nelson opened only days before Air Albatross ceased operations, on the same route, so it gained passengers well above expectations. Of course the growth of Air Nelson was a great success story,  Within three years Air New Zealand, having decided to phase out the Fokker Friendship on regional routes, would buy 50% of Air Nelson, in order to use Air Nelson as a feeder to its major routes.  By 1990 Air Nelson would be operating Saab SF-340, Fairchild Metroliners and have a network extending to Christchurch, Timaru and Palmerston North.   In 1995 Air New Zealand bought the remaining 50% of the airline, as it became one of the subsidiaries operating part of the airline's regional network (but Nelson still as its headquarters). 

The SF340 would the mainstay of the airline until 2007 when the last was phased out in favour of the Bombardier (now De Havilland once more) Q-300/Dash 8.  In 2014 Air New Zealand announced its other subsidiary, Eagle Airways, would be closed, so Air Nelson would take over additional services, which was completed by 2016.  In 2019 Air New Zealand finally merged Air Nelson completely into its business, ceasing its separate existence.

Air New Zealand introduces the Boeing 767-200ER - and reintroduces international flights from Wellington to Australia

 

Air New Zealand Boeing 767-200ER leaflet 1985

Air New Zealand Boeing 767-200ER leaflet 1985

In 1981 Air NZ ceased flying internationally from Wellington as it withdrew its Douglas DC-8-52 passenger fleet from service due to mounting losses. After that there was around a four year gap before it restarted flights using its first Boeing 767-200ER aircraft. This leaflet promote the new aircraft before they came into operation, as three had been ordered. Not only would they return international flights to Wellington (in competition with Qantas which had not ceased operations as it was using Boeing 747-SP aircraft before switching to its own Boeing 767s before Air NZ started to fly them), but they were the first Air NZ aircraft to operate from Wellington with an international business class and the first Air NZ wide body aircraft for regular service at Wellington (and the last).  The 767-200ER would also become a mainstay of Trans-Tasman flights to and from Christchurch and supplement Auckland services too, including the Perth route, but also would operate regular Auckland-Christchurch and a handful of weekly Auckland-Wellington and Wellington-Christchurch services (my first wide-body aircraft flight was on a 767-200ER from Christchurch to Wellington in my teens).

The Boeing 767-200ER would become a mainstay of Air NZ's short to medium haul international services, operating until 2005, when finally replaced by the airline's first generation of Airbus A320s. Of course the 767s with 220 passengers had a lot of capacity, so service frequencies were very poor by today's standards (by comparison today's Airbus A320NEO have only 165 seats). After a month of introductory service, the full summer schedule indicates only three flights a week WLG-SYD and one a week WLG-MEL and WLG-BNE.  Note also the absence of the early morning departures seen today for this route (no flights before 0800) and midnight arrivals (no arrivals after 2220) for Wellington. 

Air New Zealand Boeing 767 postcard and publicity card

Air New Zealand Boeing 767 publicity card (flip side)