09 March 2010

Discovering Air Discovery



Spotted at Auckland on 9 March 2010 was Air Discovery's Cessna 206 ZK-WWH. Air Discovery run an on demand transfer flights from Waiheke Island's Reeve airfield to to Auckland International, Great Barrier Island and Whitianga.

From its Tauranga base Air Discovery operates a scheduled air service to Motiti Island, an around the East Cape on an unscheduled, as-required flight service that links Tauranga, Whakatane, Opotiki, Waihau Bay, Ruatoria, Tolaga Bay and Gisborne and a transfer service to Slipper Isalnd. One presumes the mainstay of these services is Cessna 172, ZK-TAB.

The smallest in Air Discovery's fleet, Cessna 172, ZK-TAB, at Tauranga on 1 September 2009.


 
Piper Pa34 Seneca ZK-FNB photographed at Gisborne on 14 November 2007 after flying the Herald from Rotorua. FNB flew the newspaper service for a number years, initially for Air Rotorua (the commercial trading name of the Rotorua Aero Club), then Scott Air and finally with Air Discovery. The service seems to have ceased in 2009. Does anyone have a date of when it finished? How does the Herald get to Gisborne now? If you can help please write a comment below or e-mail me at westland831@gmail.com

5 comments:

  1. The Herald Run ended late 08 and it now goes by truck.

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  2. Thanks for that... You wouldn't happen to have a date for when it ended would you???? Cheers.

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  3. Thanks for that... Will update my records. Was its passing ever noticed in the Rotorua or Gisborne papers???

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  4. My Father was a driver for Leightons transport of Tauranga, who won the contract for the Gisborne Herald route. He left Tauranga at 7pm and was out of the APN print building in Ellerslie at midnight. He would drive non-stop to Gisborne (bar one drop in Matawai and Te Karaka). There was 3 vans who meet him outside Nz Posts Gisborne Branch. One van would take it as far north as Te Araroa. The other would take it to Wairoa. The other van delivered it locally. My father did this every weekend for nearly a year. Leightons lost the Contract to Courier Post Tauranga.

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