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Air New Zealand and Air Chathams interline partnership takes off strengthening regional connectivity.

After more than 15 years in Australia, musician and storyteller Ajay Peni Ataera is finally back home on the Chatham Islands; with a new family, material for a new album, and a whole new chapter in life about to begin.

Effective February 15th, Air Chathams has rolled out several exciting updates to our flight extras!

For 40 years Air Chathams has been keeping Kiwis across the country in touch, supporting small businesses and larger industries, and connecting remote communities with vital supplies and whānau. It’s been a wild ride, with challenges and opportunities, ups and downs - and now an upcoming book is set to tell the story of the little airline that could.

You can’t keep a good thing down, the old saying goes, and the Māoriland Film Festival in Ōtaki is a very good thing.

At Air Chathams we’re passionate about our environment, and we know that reaching sustainability is going to be a marathon not a sprint. So we’re making sure we’re in it for the long haul and focussing first on our own backyard and spiritual home – the Chatham Islands.

Friday, 7 October 2022 brought shock and sadness to many Kiwis as news of a mass whale stranding on Chatham Island hit the media. Soon the story was picked up in Europe and America, largely because of the size of the stranding and the fact that so many whales had died; in all, around 250 had drowned or been euthanised and images of a pristine beach littered with whale carcasses flashed around the world.

To ensure essential air connectivity for the Eastern Bay of Plenty and the Chatham Islands is maintained while we have an aircraft under maintenance, we are leasing an aircraft from our friends at Barrier Air to operate selected flights to and from Whakatāne between Tuesday 27 January and Thursday 19 February. These flights will be operated by Barrier Air using their own Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft and crew.