Norfolk Air - History

History

The airline began operations on May 2006, initially operating services to the island from Brisbane and Sydney, but subsequently introduced flights on a weekly basis from Newcastle in May 2007 and from Melbourne in November 2007. All services were initially operated by Ozjet Airlines until May 2009 when Our Airline commenced flying on Norfolk Air's behalf using its B737-300 aircraft, one of which is specially painted in Norfolk Air's own distinctive livery. Our Airline provides the technical crew for the operations, whilst Norfolk Air provides the cabin crew in its own right, with all cabin crew being resident on Norfolk Island and serving as ambassadors for the island's tourism, the main economic driver for Norfolk Island's small community of approximately 2,000 residents.

On Wednesday 29 April 2009, Jeff Murdoch, CEO of Norfolk Air announced that Our Airline would be taking over all services from Ozjet. This follows the Chairman of Ozjet Airlines decision to terminate charter services with immediate effect. Our Airline was already in preparations to take over the charter in mid May, and was in place to take up the scheduled flights.

The current CEO is Jeff Murdoch who replaced Ewan Wilson in June 2008.

On 24 December 2011 the Norfolk Island Government decided to withdraw from the airline business. The final flight was Flight 334 between Newcastle, Brisbane and Norfolk Island on the 26 February 2012. Air New Zealand took over services between mainland of Australia and Norfolk Island flying from Sydney and Brisbane using their Airbus A320 aircraft from 6 March 2012.