New Zealand start-up airline Kiwi Regional Airlines first aircraft has made landfall at the company's headquarters with Saab 340A ZK-KRA touching down at Hamilton early this afternoon concluding its delivery flight from Poland via Mattala Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka, Port Hedland, Orange and Sydney.
Wearing the Saab construction number 340A-065, ZK-KRA started out life in back in 1986 making its first flight during August that year. It was delivered to Finnaviation as OH-FAA on 08 September 1986 then Finnair from 1995 before becoming SE-KCR and moving to Flying Enterprise in November 1998. It later went onto fly with Skyways and Nordic Solutions before heading to Poland where it became SP-KPG with Direct Fly in March 2006. Two years later it was with Sprintair from where it was sourced by Kiwi Regional Airlines. The aircraft was painted in its new colours by Eirtech at Ostrava, Czech Republic and became ZK-KRA on 27 August.
Kiwi Regional Airlines intend to commence scheduled services between Hamilton, Nelson, Dunedin and Queenstown commencing 27 October 2015.