Sunday, September 06, 2015

Very rare, almost extinct!

Following on from yesterday's post about the increasing rarity of Air NZ's Raytheon B1900D's, here's a truly rare, and soon-to-be extinct one!

Today was the final day of regularly scheduled Boeing 737 flying for Air New Zealand, with the last of their B737's, a B737-319, ZK-NGI, undertaking a full day of flying between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The only additional flights are expected to be part of a farewell tour to various airports next week.

This marks the end of over 40 years of B737 domestic and international flying with Air NZ [utilising B737-200's initially then moving to the -300's] and I guess the end of the transition to an all A320 fleet for domestic and much of the regional flying.

Anyway, here are a few photos from the last scheduled passenger flight takeoff from Wellington. It didn't take up much runway - other photos I have indicate it was off prior to taxiway M4... full noise and a lighter load perhaps?

Boeing 737-319, ZK-NGI, operated by Air NZ

Boeing 737-319, ZK-NGI, operated by Air NZ

Boeing 737-319, ZK-NGI, operated by Air NZ

Boeing 737-319, ZK-NGI, operated by Air NZ

3 comments:

plane_mad_nz said...

:-(
is about all I can say.

Rodney said...

Yeah true, although I find the A320's much more comfortable [I'm not saying they are comfy, just more comfy], especially with me being reasonably tall at 6'2".

minicooper said...

It's a sad day indeed. At least I got to see and photograph it one last time, I doubt I will be able to be there on the 15th.