By 
Source: www.hawkesbay-airport.co.nz
When I visit Auckland, the conversation with business contacts sometimes turns to air travel and it’s interesting that our jafa friends often have a strange preconception about the quality of service we get down here in the Bay.
For some reason, many of them seen to think that to get to the big smoke we’ve got to walk across a grass airstrip, then clamber aboard one of those pencil-sized aircraft which might be scheduled to make one return trip a day, if we're lucky.
My Auckland friends are often surprised to learn that, in fact, Air New Zealand puts on around eight return flights to both Auckland and Wellington a day (plus a couple of direct return flights to Christchurch) and that Hawke’ Bay is normally serviced by the airline’s fleet of pretty spacious 50-seat Bombardier Q300 aircraft.
More than 400,000 passengers pass through Hawke’s Bay Airport over a year – that’s around 1,100 a day. As well as Air New Zealand servicing the main centres, the airport is also used by Sunair to operate flights to Gisborne, Tauranga and Hamilton, plus other charter and freight operators, and even a few private jets.
There’s long been a debate over whether the runway should be extended to open the airport up to trans-Tasman flights. The economics of this have been questioned, but at least with the airport’s recent corporatisation, its board is in a better position to make decisions on this type of development question without being hamstrung the way it was under the previous ownership structure.
But what do you think of Hawke’s Bay’s airport facilities and associated air services? What should the board focus its development plans on? Would the Bay benefit from a trans-Tasman service? Or do we need competition for Air New Zealand out of Hawke’s Bay to the key domestic destinations?
Please share your thoughts.
15:35, 07.09.2009
Traveling to and from Hawkes Bay is better than I thought. Schedule is good and the planes are excellent. You can get work done. It’s also great not have to ‘nude up’ through security like you have to in AKL-WGN.
I try to book my flights ahead on the off peak and often get $69. Many of those flights I don’t actually make because plans have changed.
Having to pay $314 one way for a short notice flights stings. Be great to be able to buy a reasonably priced 10 trip commuter ticket with a easy canceling mechanism. Maybe it has to be 3 days before or something.
Flying to London or to the US from HB is no different that Wellington as it’s late out, early in which suits the normal connections. Australia normally requires an extra night somewhere. One of two direct flights a week to Sydney would be so good.
I was in Queenstown a couple of weeks ago and that was packed with Australians. Direct flights to the Bay would have to provide a fantastic platform for growing tourism.
11:54, 08.09.2009
Generally it has been pretty good and the Bombardier is a great aircraft. But lately I have had complaints. I tried to book a return flight to Wellington 2 months ahead. There were only THREE flights in the weekday NOT EIGHT! and because of this they were already so booked that there was nothing cheaper than $475 return. That is far too much unless it is last minute! I expect far better service than this. It seems that AirNZ is trying to make up for their competition losses on the main routes by squeezing us dry where we have no choice.