This Sunday our SNO (Sunday Night Operations) is farewelling International Services from Palmerston North airport. Last Saturday, 29th March saw the end of an era with the final flights of Air New Zealand subsidiary, Freedom Air. Most Freedom Air services are being taken over by Air New Zealand from 31 March 2008. Unfortunately, Air New Zealand decided not to continue international services from Palmerston North, choosing to have passengers connect via domestic services to either Wellington or Auckland.
We are marking the demise of international flights from Palmerston North by flying the final two international routes operated by Freedom Air up until last Saturday, with flights over the Tasman Sea to and from Sydney and Brisbane.
We are encouraging pilots to travel in either direction between Palmerston North and at least one of Sydney or Brisbane.
Total flight time one-way should be somewhere in the region of 3 - 3.5 hours depending on your direction of travel, aircraft type, and prevailing winds.
Pilots wishing to make a return trip will probably need to leave earlier than the event start time and/or fly at 4x speed during the Oceanic portion of the trip. Aircraft travelling at accelerated speed may be assigned a different flight level to keep them separated from 1x traffic.
Freedom Air have operated both the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-300 on this route over the years, but feel free to bring whatever you feel you can land safely at Palmerston North!
- Departure Time: Sunday 6th April 2008 1900 NZST
- Flight Time: 3 - 3.5 hours / sector
- Flight Plan Route:
NZPM / YSSY: PM Q559 TANEN M636 SY
NZPM / YBBN: PM Q651 GULUT M639 SAVER G329 BN
YSSY / NZPM: SY M636 TANEN Q559 PM
YBBN / NZPM: BN J208 LHI M639 GULUT Q651 PM
- Potential ATC Positions:
NZPM_TWR - Palmerston North Tower
NZOH_CTR - Ohakea Control
NZCH-W_CTR - Christchuch Control
NZZC_FSS - Auckland Radio
To reserve a particular ATC position, please post a message to that effect (including the times you expect to be online) in this thread. If possible, also book your position using vRoute - large numbers of bookings in vroute attract additional traffic.
* Charts/Airspace Info: Available from the VATNZ Airspace Reference site.
And a little bit about Freedom Air's final day of operations:
"[url wrote:http://mrcaviation.blogspot.com[/url]"]Sat 29Mar08, signals the end of an era for the Air NZ group of airlines with Freedom Air ceasing to exist. The airline was formed in 1995 to combat the entrance of Kiwi Air who commenced services from Hamilton using a Boeing 757. The rest is history with Kiwi Air going through a period of expansion before closing operations, however Freedom Air persisted and services from Hamilton across the Tasman expanded to see services out of Palmerston North and Dunedin, along with services out of Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland to Australia and limited services to Fiji from Christchurch and Wellington.
Freedom Air was more closely linked to the parent company during 2006 with the advent of a new company branded Zeal 320. This was setup to manage the Airbus A320 fleet which Freedom was now operating and all cabincrew came under the Zeal banner but operated both Freedom and Air NZ services on the Airbus. Prior to the advent of Zeal, only Freedom pilots could fly the Freedom assigned Airbus and likewise Air NZ pilots only Air NZ Airbus. The creation of the new company meant a new AOC bringing the fleet into one entity and this saw a revision to the Airbus timetable, ultimately reducing the fleet by 2 aircraft following the synergies achieved through the merger. Only one aircraft has remained in Freedom livery for the last couple of years, this being ZK-OJO which also features a Warner Brothers character scheme.
Reduced fares on Air NZ services and the small difference between these and Freedom fares saw the group conclude that Freedom was no longer a viable marketing tool and it was decided during the latter part of 2007 that Freedom would cease to exist with services currently using the SJ airline designator change to an NZ one and services continue from Dunedin and Hamilton along with Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. Regrettably, poor yeilds on flights in/out of Palmerston North saw services terminated to this port.
Freedom Air had a brief foray on the NZ domestic routes with a wet lease of Airwork's Boeing 737-200QC ZK-NQC flying main trunk services following the collapse of Tasman Pacific/Qantas NZ earlier this decade.
Freedom Air have operated over the years a number of aircraft, firstly with a Boeing 757 leased from Brittania, a Boeing 737-300 from Taca, and then a fleet of their own 737-300's before transition to the Airbus A320-200.
The following is a precis of the carrier's final day:
A320 ZK-OJB flew as NZ731 AKLBNE, then SJ376 BNEDUD, SJ379 DUDBNE then NZ738 BNEAKL. This was the final SJ prefixed service to/from DUD
A320 ZK-OJD was to have operated NZ701 AKLSYD and SJ736 SYDPMR however maintenance requirements saw these services cancelled and the aircraft positioned as SJ7221 AKLPMR to then operate SJ735 PMRSYD and NZ706 SYDAKL. This was the final international service to/from PMR. As has already been reported, Ozjet where to have started services to/from PMR from 30Mar however announced on 27Mar that this was no longer happening!
A320 ZK-OJG flew as NZ781 CHCSYD, NZ782 SYDCHC, SJ965 CHCOOL and SJ966 OOLCHC.
A320 ZK-OJN flew as SJ907 AKLOOL returning as SJ908.
A320 ZK-OJM flew as NZ769 WLGBNE, NZ762 BNEWLG, SJ943 WLGOOL and the final ever Freedom Air service SJ928 OOLHLZ.
SJ966 was flown by Capt Ken Brister and F/O Byron Phillips
SJ928 was flown by Capt John Harvey and F/O Nigel Hoggard
As an aside, A320's operating services for Freedom were bulk loaded, i.e. not containerised, as equipment to move the containers was not available at DUD or PMR. Also different catering and headrests were used for Freedom requiring a change to the cabin everytime it switched from NZ to SJ. As can be seen by the aircraft routines on the final day, this was a common occurrence!
Also refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Air
Oh and for some good FREEWARE Palmerston North Scenery, get Lawrie Roache's Palmerston North scenery from AVSIM
Here's some preview shots from AVSIM:
