Kiwi Air pulls out of Queenstown
Kiwi Regional Airlines has pulled the plug on its Queenstown services, one month after launch.
Kiwi Regional Airlines has pulled the plug on its Queenstown-Dunedin services, one month after launch.
Kiwi Airlines chief executive chief executive Ewan Wilson says through a statement the services to Queenstown have been “extremely challenging” for the company, and a combination of weather-related cancellations and low passenger bookings have made it unsustainable for the service to continue.
“We made a commercial decision to end the scheduled Queenstown flights before they affected the performance of our whole company but we have left it open to return to the city at a future date, for charters or potential alternative scheduled services.”
The company pulled back its Queenstown services – which use its 34-seater SAAB 340A – on its first day of operation due to lack of passenger interest.
It originally planned twice-daily flights on the Queenstown-Dunedin route on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but was forced to cut this back to a Monday morning return flight and another on Friday afternoon due to lack of demand.
The last flight will be at the end of this month. Any passengers who have booked on Queenstown flights after November will be offered refunds.
The airline is targeting regional corporate travellers. It also flies four days a week return from Dunedin to Nelson, Nelson to Hamilton and Dunedin to Hamilton.
Mr Wilson says the other routes have all exceeded expectations for the first month of operation, and the airline will look to expand into other regions such as Hawkes Bay, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki.
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Calida Smylie
Tue, 24 Nov 2015
Tue, 24 Nov 2015
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Kiwi Air pulls out of Queenstown
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