Airport Growth
These days Whangarei District Airport is becoming increasingly busy, with passenger numbers increasing steadily, on its nine return flights to Auckland and two flights to Wellington each weekday.
This increase in demand caused Air New Zealand to put on extra flights from early July, 2007. This boosted the airport's capacity to around 140,000 departing and arriving passengers per year. However, capacity has been reduced in more recent times due to economic downturn.
Currently, the largest aircraft regularly using the airport is the Beechcraft 1900D, although a recent runway upgrade will now allow Bombardier Dash 8s and weight restricted ATR 72s to land. The runway upgrade cost $1.5 million, extended the runway 30m, and resealed all of the current runway surface. It was completed at the end of April, 2009.
Because of this project, many large groups and sports teams now charter Bombardier Dash 8s to travel to Whangarei, to make use of the 50 seat capacity the aircraft has.
In 2011, a charted ATR 72 operated by Air New Zealand was the first of its kind to land at the airport.
On the 4th of February 2012 an Air New Zealand Bombardier Q300 made its first flight from Wellington International Airport to Whangarei Airport using this aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Whangarei Airport
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