13-16 February

Marlborough Scene
Friday 13-Feb-2009
Arriving into Woodbourne today was RNZAF B200 King Air NZ1887

Saturday 14-Feb-2009
Once again Pionair Convair VH-PAL operated a tour flight through Woodbourne arriving late morning from Mount Cook then departing during the afternoon to Wellington.

Also arriving into Woodbourne and Omaka was Nelson based Cessna TU206G ZK-EOP arriving from Nelson under the callsign Survey2. EOP c/n U20604697 was first registered in NZ in 1979 and is owned by Air Logistics (Nelson) which operate the business Aerial Surveys.

Monday 16-Feb-2009
Arriving into Woodbourne during the morning was RNZAF B200 King Air NZ1884. Also operating around Woodbourne were two RNZAF UH-1H Iroquoi's NZ3809 and NZ3816.

Pacific Blue
Once again the Friday/Saturday and Sunday/Monday overnight DJ175/174 BNE-NAN-BNE were cancelled this weekend 13/14 & 15/16-Feb-2009.

Jetstar
Jetstar operate two aircraft from their Christchurch base, on services to Sydney(10x/wk), Melbourne(9x/wk), Brisbane(7x/wk) and Gold Coast(2x/wk).

All JQ aircraft are able to operate on the Short Haul International, Australian Domestic and Trans-Tasman fleets. The aircraft in the Trans-Tasman fleet usually swap in MEL but can also swap in SYD.

On Saturday 14-Feb-2009 VH-VQS was operating JQ190/191 CHC-OOL-CHC when it was struck on the ground in OOL by a loader, which caused the return JQ191 to be cancelled. The follow on effect was JQ140/143 CHC-SYD-CHC & JQ166 CHC-MEL were cancelled on Sunday 15-Feb-2009. The aircraft was replaced on the Tasman run by VH-VQC which slotted into the schedule operating JQ171 MEL-BNE. VQS re-entered Jetstar service the same day operating JQ447 OOL-MEL.

Jetstar are set to add a 3rd A320 to its Trans-Tasman fleet with the addition of an AKL base at the end of March. It will operate a daily AKL-SYD-AKL-OOL-AKL routing.

There is also scheduled to be an announcement from Jetstar this week, which is believed to be introducing off peak domestic services to the NZ market. This will help in fleet rotation between the AKL and CHC bases, and also enable easy rotation between the Australian domestic and Trans-Tasman fleets.

There is speculation as to if the domestic services will just be AKL-CHC or whether WLG, DUD and ZQN will also gain services, but all will be reveled at the press conference during the week.

Air New Zealand
The newest destination in the Domestic network is Masterton (MRO) with 7x/wk services to AKL being operated by Eagle Air's B1900D's.

The schedule is:
AKL-MRO NZ2223 Su-Th 1830-1945
MRO-AKL NZ2224 Mo-Fr 0705-0820
AKL-MRO NZ2223 Fr 1900-2015
MRO-AKL NZ2226 Fr 2030-2145

The inaugural AKL-MRO service arrived into Masterton yesterday Sunday 15-Feb-2009 with ZK-EAI having the honour. The inaugural MRO-AKL service departed this morning Monday 16-Feb-2009.

Codes Used
Airports:
AKL: Auckland, NZ
BHE: Blenheim/Woodbourne, NZ
BNE: Brisbane, AU
DUD: Dunedin, NZ
MEL: Melbourne, AU
MRO: Masterton, NZ
NAN: Nadi, Fiji
OOL: Gold Coast/Coolangatta, AU
SYD: Sydney, AU
WLG: Wellington, NZ
ZQN: Queenstown, NZ

Airlines:
DJ: Pacific Blue/Virgin Blue
JQ: Jetstar
NZ: Air New Zealand