New Zealand: Wellington and Marlborough Airports Chosen “As Country’s Future Base for All-Electric Aircraft”

Air New Zealand (ANZ) recent­ly announced it has select­ed Welling­ton and Marl­bor­ough Air­ports as a home base for its future all-elec­tric air­craft, reports a press release.

Welling­ton will be the home of ANZ’s first next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft, while Marl­bor­ough is to estab­lish charg­ing infra­struc­ture to pow­er the craft for the return jour­ney.

Kiri Han­nifin, ANZ’s Chief Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Offi­cer, com­ment­ed, “Their involve­ment is crit­i­cal in sup­port­ing the infra­struc­ture required to fly next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft, and they’ll help lead the way in sup­port­ing air­ports across the coun­try to make the changes need­ed for us to fly larg­er low­er-emis­sions air­craft on our domes­tic net­work from 2030.”

Matt Clarke, CEO of Welling­ton Air­port, added, “This is a real coup for us. It will be a giant leap for sus­tain­able avi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing the basis for all air­ports to pre­pare for the next gen­er­a­tion of air­craft tech­nol­o­gy. Our team put their heart and soul into the host­ing bid and that same ener­gy will now be focussed on get­ting this ser­vice off the ground.”

Welling­ton Inter­na­tion­al Air­port

Air New Zealand announced the pur­chase of its first next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft, the all-elec­tric ALIA CTOL from Beta Tech­nolo­gies, late last year. The air­line will ini­tial­ly oper­ate a car­go-only ser­vice in part­ner­ship with NZ Post. Based in Auck­land, the air­line oper­ates sched­uled pas­sen­ger flights to 20 domes­tic and 30 inter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tions in 18 coun­tries, pri­mar­i­ly with­in the Pacif­ic Rim. The air­line has been a mem­ber of the Star Alliance since 1999.

Dean Heiford, CEO of Marl­bor­ough Air­port, remarked, “Main­tain­ing region­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty through this tran­si­tion is of nation­al impor­tance. This will fur­ther cement Marl­bor­ough as an impor­tant hub to keep New Zealand con­nect­ed across the Cook Strait.” He added, “We’re look­ing for­ward to shar­ing our expe­ri­ences with oth­er region­al air­ports across New Zealand.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.airnewzealand.co.uk/

https://www.wellingtonairport.co.nz/

https://www.marlboroughairport.co.nz/

(Top image: Air New Zealand)

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