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Sounds air: the new zealand airline you might not have heard of.

Sounds Air, New Zealand's 'big' little airline has been operating for 30 years, connecting the Marlborough Sounds, Wellington, and beyond.

Sounds Air (S8), a regional airline based out of Picton's Koromiko Aerodrome (PCN) in the Marlborough Sounds of New Zealand , has been creating its own niche of lucrative routes throughout regional New Zealand.

A slice of New Zealand history

Sounds Air was started by Cliff and Diane Marchant in 1987. They had a vision of providing low-cost interisland transport to provide locals and tourists with easy access to the Marlborough Sounds. Since then, over 175,000 crossings have been completed of the Cook Strait to its own airport at Picton's Koromiko Aerodrome, in addition to Blenheim (BHE), Nelson (NSN), Westport (WSZ), and Paraparaumu (PPQ).

More recently, Sounds Air has begun flying Blenheim to Christchurch (CHC), Christchurch to Wanaka (WKA), Wellington to Westport, and Wellington to Taupo (TUO).

The airline runs a fleet of four Cessna Caravans and six Pilatus PC12s. These aircraft are single-engine, turbine-powered, and ideal for these regional routes, providing high levels of passenger safety and comfort and being sturdy and reliable aircraft to operate. The Pilatus PC-12 is the best-selling pressurized single-engine turboprop -powered aircraft in the world.

Air New Zealand's loss is Sounds Air's gain

Air New Zealand 's decision to cancel regional services from Wellington to Westport, Wellington to Taupo, and Blenheim to Christchurch, has allowed Sound's Air to step in and connect with regional councils to provide direct services to these regional communities.

Sounds Air formerly served Kaikoura (KBZ), Napier (NPE) and Whanganui (WAG) from Wellington, Napier from Blenheim and Paraparaumu from Picton. A service to Masterton (MRO) had been considered from Wellington; however, no such service was launched because the town wanted the link to Auckland (AKL) reinstated instead.

In addition to scheduled flights, Sounds Air offers scenic flights over the Marlborough Sounds and Abel Tasman National Park. The airline started temporary services to Kaikoura from Christchurch and Blenheim on November 21, 2016, following the Kaikoura earthquake. The Kaikoura to Christchurch flights ceased on January 27, 2017. Sounds Air commenced Christchurch to Wānaka, another former Air New Zealand route, on November 2, 2020.

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Current schedule

Sounds Air currently operates the following schedule:

• Wellington (WLG) to Picton (PCN) - 23 flights per week
• Wellington (WLG) to Nelson (NSN) - 18 flights per week - in direct competition with Air New Zealand
• Wellington (WLG) to Blenheim (BHE) - 44 flights per week - in direct competition with Air New Zealand
• Blenheim (BHE) to Paraparaumu (PPQ) - four flights per week
• Nelson (NSN) to Paraparaumu (PPQ) - three flights per week
• Wellington (WLG) to Westport (WSZ) - 15 flights per week
• Wellington (WLG) to Taupo (TUO) - 15 flights per week
• Blenheim (BHE) to Christchurch (CHC) - 17 flights per week
• Christchurch (CHC) to Wanaka (WKA) - 12 flights per week

Electric aircraft by 2028

Electric passenger planes are set to feature on departure boards in New Zealand within six years. Sounds Air has announced plans to be the first Australasian airline offering electric-powered flights. Working with the Swedish company Heart Aerospace , it has signed a letter of intent to introduce the 30-seater ES-30 aircraft. It plans to have the aircraft set for take-off by 2028, and eventually convert to an all-electric fleet.

Source: Sounds Air , Buller District Council , Radio New Zealand

• NZ: 0800 505 005
• Int: +64 (0)3 520 3080
• Scheduled Flights Wellington Picton Wellington Nelson Wellington Blenheim Blenheim Paraparaumu Nelson Paraparaumu Wellington Westport Wellington Taupo Blenheim Christchurch Christchurch Wanaka
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Sounds Air Scheduled Flights

Click on a route to see route information, airport and destination information

Sounds Air Sale Terms and Conditions

• Travel periods and conditions apply. Book between 29 June & 03 July 2022. 
• Seats and days are limited. Corporate discounts do not apply. Price per person one way.
• Fares may vary by destination, flight, and day of the week and won't be available on some flights that operate during very busy travel times.
• Non-refundable. Previously purchased tickets may not be exchanged for these sale fares, applies to new purchases only.
• Name changes not permitted. Additional credit card payment fees apply.
• Because our aircraft are smaller, sometimes there are only a few sale seats available on each flight. Parties may find it easier to find sale fares if they book individually.

Airfare Travel Periods

• Sale fares apply only to travel dates between 29 June 2022 & 30 September 2022. Blackout dates may apply.

To book a reservation or find out more about our services call us on 0800 505 005

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Sounds Air Reviews and Flights

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Reviews We perform checks on reviews. Tripadvisor’s approach to reviews Before posting, each Tripadvisor review goes through an automated tracking system, which collects information, answering the following questions: how, what, where and when. If the system detects something that potentially contradicts our community guidelines , the review is not published. When the system detects a problem, a review may be automatically rejected, sent to the reviewer for validation, or manually reviewed by our team of content specialists, who work 24/7 to maintain the quality of the reviews on our site. Our team checks each review posted on the site disputed by our community as not meeting our community guidelines . Learn more about our review moderation.

• Excellent 46
• Very Good 12
• Premium Economy
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• First Class
• All languages ( 62 )
• English ( 61 )
• Russian ( 1 )

" No need to go through security or typical airline rigmarole "

" noise cancelling headphones would be a good idea, listen to some music as the cabin can be a bit noisy "

" Get the window seat (???) "

" Check the weather forecast for Wellington. "

" small 12 seater aircraft, weight is a serious matter so don't take too much luggage or if you do, expect to be charged for it. "

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Sounds Air Reviews and Flights

• Airlines    

• Excellent 46
• Very Good 12
• Premium Economy
• Business Class
• First Class
• All languages ( 62 )
• English ( 61 )
• Russian ( 1 )

" No need to go through security or typical airline rigmarole "

" noise cancelling headphones would be a good idea, listen to some music as the cabin can be a bit noisy "

" Get the window seat (???) "

" Check the weather forecast for Wellington. "

" small 12 seater aircraft, weight is a serious matter so don't take too much luggage or if you do, expect to be charged for it. "

Search flights

New Zealand regional airline Sounds Air releases 'all-you-can-fly' tickets

A New Zealand airline is releasing $799 all-you-can-fly tickets, giving purchasers three months to travel as often as they like with the airline.

Regional carrier Sounds Air has 1000 of the tickets available and flies to nine destinations from Wānaka to Taupō.

Sounds Air general manager Andrew Crawford told  Checkpoint  the country was past Omicron and COVID-19, and while people wanted to get "out there" again, they had been slow coming back to air travel.

"I was in the USA recently and I really noticed how people are moving around and getting into it ... and I come back to New Zealand and we're very very much still in our shells.

"People are sick of it - sick of Zoom and sick of Teams."

The airline had 17,000 seats available for the time the tickets are available for, and he encouraged those who bought the special tickets to make the most of them.

"We've got spare capacity, let's get people buying a season pass and try to get them on flights that are not full anyway.

"We're New Zealand's regional carrier and we just want to get people back flying again."

Crawford said Sounds Air was also working on plans to become the world's first regional airline to fly zero-emissions flights.

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In New Zealand, Experiencing the Miracle of Flight Anew

The country's domestic airlines play a crucial role in connectivity. But for the casual flier, even the journey is captivating.

By Natasha Frost

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter based in Melbourne.

The other week, approximately 32 years into my career as a seasoned flier, I experienced air travel as if for the very first time — the flight of angels, of billionaires, of dreams. (It was still in coach class.)

On a recent reporting trip in New Zealand, I arranged to spend the weekend visiting an old friend who now lives near Havelock, a town of around 600 people at the top of the country’s South Island, about 50 miles due west of Wellington, where I was traveling from.

With the Cook Strait between New Zealand’s North and South Islands in the way, the easiest option was to take a domestic flight — one of hundreds that zip across the country every day.

Flying domestically in New Zealand is only marginally more rigorous than boarding a bus. If you don’t have baggage to check in, you may walk through the airport doors half an hour before your flight departs. No one will check your ID at any point, and you don’t even need to show your boarding pass to pass through security, which usually takes a minute or two, with no limits on liquids. In some smaller airports, there is no security at all.

To get to Havelock, I booked a seat on a flight run not by Air New Zealand, the national airline, but by Sounds Air, one of the country’s far smaller “regional carriers,” of which there are around half a dozen.

Departing Sounds Air from Wellington, you bypass security screenings altogether. Your ticket to ride is little more than a reusable piece of green laminated paper that reads “Boarding Pass to Blenheim.” Checking in a bag? They sling it into the back of the nine-seat plane. And don’t bother going to the carousel on arrival. It’ll be handed to you as you get off.

The lack of rigmarole is entirely intentional, with some frequent fliers purchasing 10-trip tickets for regular hops across the strait, said Andrew Crawford, the airline’s chief executive.

“That is our point of difference,” he said. “This is what people like.”

The airline was founded in 1986, with a single nine-seater Cessna Caravan ferrying people to the Marlborough Sounds. It now has 10 planes — the largest of their crafts seats 12 — and carries about 120,000 people a year, mostly on routes where there is no alternative, other than the road.

Some passengers are commuters. Others are tourists. And then there are those who live in rural areas and require specialist medical attention in larger cities. “If you’re going for cancer treatment or day surgery, stuff like that,” he said. “That’s a big part of our business.”

These small airlines play a crucial role in helping New Zealanders get around a country that has an extremely limited rail network, and where many people live far from essential services.

But it was the flight itself that captivated me.

Under normal circumstances, elbow-to-elbow with strangers, the majesty of flying is somewhat displaced by the discomfort of being inside a pressurized metal tube, and you easily forget that you are thousands of feet in the air. (Some people prefer to forget that.)

But at roughly 6,500 feet, low and slow enough to see wind turbines and craggy hills unfold before us, as if flying in a dream, the miracle of flight seemed uncommonly … miraculous.

The wind whistled past the cabin, and I could see into the cockpit, over the shoulder of the solo pilot and out the windscreen. As we came into land through the vineyards that the region is known for, the grapes were almost visible on the vine. It wasn’t hard to imagine myself as some early aviatrix, and I struggled to keep a grin off my face.

All in all, I told my waiting host, it was an experience exactly halfway between riding in a minivan and traveling on a private jet.

Here are the week’s stories.

Australia and New Zealand

Australia Wanted to Catch Chinese Spies. Is This Really Whom It Had in Mind? The first case tried under Australia’s foreign interference laws has raised tough questions about the breadth of the regulations.

A Museum’s Feminist Artwork Excluded Men. So One Man Took It to Court. Gender-based discrimination is central to the women-only art installation, in Australia, but one visitor claims it is also illegal.

Two Aboriginal Artists Urge Viewers to See the Universe Differently. Naminapu Maymuru-White and Daniel Boyd grew up hundreds of miles and a generation apart. Yet they share a goal: reframing the way we see the universe.

A Reporter With a Fear of Snakes Joins a Snake Catcher. To write about the increase in snake encounters in Australia, a journalist had to get hands-on with the slithering reptiles.

Around the Times

What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living. Researchers are documenting a phenomenon that seems to help the dying, as well as those they leave behind.

A ‘Perfect Monolith’ Appears in Wales. A resident said he discovered the shiny, silver object on a prominent hill during his daily walk.

Piety and Profanity: The Raunchy Christians Are Here. In the Trump era, a surprising number of evangelicals are rejecting modesty and turning toward the risqué.

22 of the Funniest Novels Since ‘Catch-22.’ Because we could all use a laugh.

Are you enjoying our Australia bureau dispatches? Tell us what you think at [email protected] .

Like this email? Forward it to your friends (they could use a little fresh perspective, right?) and let them know they can sign up here .

Enjoying the Australia Letter? Sign up here or forward to a friend.

For more Australia coverage and discussion, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group .

Natasha Frost writes The Times’s weekday newsletter The Europe Morning Briefing and reports on Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. She is based in Melbourne, Australia. More about Natasha Frost

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SOUNDS AIR (Picton) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go

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FAQs about flying with Sounds Air

Where does sounds air fly to.

Sounds Air proposes only domestic flights in New Zealand to 9 different cities, including Blenheim, Christchurch, and Wanaka.

What is Sounds Air’s primary hub?

Sounds Air concentrates most of its flight operations in Wellington.

How does KAYAK find such low prices on Sounds Air flights?

KAYAK is a travel search engine, meaning that we continuously look across the web to find the best deals for our users. With over 2 billion flight queries processed yearly, we are able to display a variety of prices and options on flights from all airlines, including Sounds Air.

What’s the cheapest route that Sounds Air flies?

In the last 72 hours, the cheapest route flown by Sounds Air found on KAYAK was from Wellington to Blenheim, with a price of $129 for a round-trip.

What are the most popular airports for Sounds Air flights to depart from?

With 5 Sounds Air flights departing each week, Wellington airport is the most popular airport for Sounds Air flights to depart from. The most popular destination from this airport is Nelson. The next most popular departure airport is Blenheim airport, with 3 Sounds Air flights departing from there each week.

Is Sounds Air part of an airline alliance?

No, Sounds Air is not part of an airline alliance.

How many destinations does Sounds Air fly to?

In total, Sounds Air flies to 9 destinations.

Sounds Air customer reviews

Sounds air flight status, sounds air route map – which destinations does sounds air fly to, all sounds air flight routes, top airports served by sounds air.

• Wellington Airport (WLG)
• Blenheim Airport (BHE)
• Christchurch Airport (CHC)
• Nelson Airport (NSN)
• Picton Koromiko Airport (PCN)
• Westport Airport (WSZ)
• Taupo Airport (TUO)

Sounds Air contact information

• S8 IATA code
• +64 (0)3 520 3080 Call
• soundsair.com Visit

Sounds Air information

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• Excellent 46
• Very Good 12
• Premium Economy
• Business Class
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• All languages ( 62 )
• English ( 61 )
• Russian ( 1 )

" No need to go through security or typical airline rigmarole "

" noise cancelling headphones would be a good idea, listen to some music as the cabin can be a bit noisy "

" Get the window seat (???) "

" Check the weather forecast for Wellington. "

" small 12 seater aircraft, weight is a serious matter so don't take too much luggage or if you do, expect to be charged for it. "

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Frequently Asked Questions

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