Whangarei to Auckland transport links

Between COVID19 and a very wet 2023, the transport links between Northland and the rest of the country have suffered from major disruptions. They simply are not resilient. This post is the start of an examination of the problems and some of the possible solutions. It will be edited as I add more material but let's start with SH1.

I will also look at the months-long failure of the rail link, the proposals to build a rail link to the port at Marsden Point and move Whangarei airport, and an interesting new proposal for a ground-effect service along the coast called Ocean Flyer.

Before the Labour Government was elected, its National Party predecessor had promised a four-lane highway.

The current SH1 four laneing has now reached north to Warkworth with the recent opening of a new road north from Puhoi. This was part of the previous Government's Roads of National Significance (RoNs) programme.

At the same time work has been done to improve the safety of the existing section of SH1 between Warkworth and Wellsford.

But what was investigated before the change of Government in 2017? There is still information on the NZ Transport Agency web site about what might have involved a major rerouting of SH1, avoiding both Dome Valley and the Brynderwyn Hill. See, for example, the August 2017 Programme Business Case: https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/projects/whangarei-to-te-hana/Whangarei-to-Auckland-PBC.pdf

Information about the current work programme is available from the NZTA web page on Connecting Northland: https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/connecting-northland/ 

Airline Competition in Australia

For the last three years the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been required to produce quarterly reports on airline competition in Australia. These reports are available here.

Fifth Freedom operations around the world

Fifth freedom services involve the sale and carriage of passengers and or cargo by an international airline between two countries, neither of which is the home country of that airline.

Their exchange by governments was a contentious issue at the Chicago conference in 1944. They have subsequently been exchanged by governments on a limited basis in bilateral air services arrangements and more recently have been a key feature of "open skies" agreements.

Perhaps their value has diminished, however, with technology improvement as more fuel efficient airliners have become capable of flying longer and longer ranges thereby eliminating the need to make intermediate stops.

On 27 January 2023 Matt Graham of Australian Frequent Flyer published a very interesting list of the remaining fifth freedom operations around the world.

Old New Zealand aeronautical charts

In late 2021 I came across a source for scans of all the old New Zealand aeronautical charts and plates. The scans are excellent but the indexing is just about non existent when it comes to trying to isolate them out.

Go to: geodatahub.library.auckland.ac.nz 

Have a look in the Knowledge Base at the New Zealand Mapping Service section, click on NZMS_009A, NZMS_009C, NZMS_012A, NZMS_89A, NZMS_096 and NZMS_228 then click on .jpg

NZMS_006 contains hundreds of aerodrome plates and instrument procedures.

NZMS_103 covers the NZ-UK air route in 1953.

Some of the earliest charts that I could find date from the late 1930s.

Parliamentary Annual Reviews of Air New Zealand

Since the New Zealand Government took a majority shareholding in Air New Zealand the company has been the subject of annual reviews by a parliamentary select committee. The following is a (draft) list of some recent reports:

• 2013/14 
• 2014/15 
• 2015/16 
• 2016/17 
• 2017/18 
• 2018/19 
• 2019/20
• 2020/21
• 2021/22