Nelson Airport
Nelson Airport is an airport in Nelson, New Zealand. Approximately 1.2 million passengers and visitors are said to use the airport terminal annually. Total passenger numbers for the 2011 financial year were 758,250. This represents passenger growth of approximately 11% on the previous year.Its currently the sixth busiest airport in New Zealand by scheduled passenger traffic.Construction of Nelson Airport commenced in 1937. In 2006, the airport received restricted international airport status, and it has handled international private jets since then. In terms of scheduled aircraft movements Nelson is the eighth busiest airport in New Zealand. The airport averages 80 aircraft movements every day, with a plane taking off or landing on average every 6 minutes during scheduled hours.Nelson airport is the home base of Air Nelson operating under the Air NZ Link bannerAir New Zealand Link which operates a fleet of Bombardier Dash 8 Q300s on national air routes. Recently, Air New Zealand, (Air Nelson's parent airline) has expanded its Nelson base. The national carrier invested 30 million dollars to develop it engineering and technical workshops in Nelson. Air New Zealand then announced that the Air Nelson maintenance facility would also handle fellow subsidiary, Mount Cook Airline's fleet of ATR 72-500/600 aircraft.Airlines and destinationsScheduledAir New Zealand operate daily up to 10 flights to Auckland, 13 flights to Wellington and 7 flights to Christchurch. As Nelson is a maintenance hub for Mount Cook Airline's ATR 72 aircraft, occasional Air Nelson Q300 services are changed to the ATR 72 if the aircraft needs a check in Nelson. On peak days like the start of school holidays, Beechcraft 1900D aircraft operated by Eagle Airways (also part of Air New Zealand) visit Nelson for extra capacity.
