As reported by the Otago Daily Times in August, transtasman air travel is set to resume on June 24 2025, with Jetstar announcing that it will fly between Dunedin and Coolangatta three times a week.
In June the daily mean temperature in Coolangatta (a coastal suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland) is 21.1°C; in Dunedin at the same time the mean temperature is 7.4°C. Aussie ski bunnies and Kiwi sun-seekers should both be happy at this development.
Dunedin is an isolated outpost at the best of times, and that sense of distance from anywhere has been exacerbated since the Covid-driven demise of international flights to and from the city.
But if the truth be told, the service had always been an economically precarious one, and various airlines had battled to make the route pay its way.
There has been a determined public campaign, most notably by teenager Benjamin Paterson, for the restoration of international flights to Dunedin. At the same time, city leaders and airport management have been working behind the scenes to secure an airline prepared to put the city back on the map.
No matter where the credit lies, those responsible are to be congratulated on their achievement.
But Jetstar is not a charity and will be expecting to make money. The service will only remain as long as it is used.
To that end Dunedin’s tourism sector will need to increase its marketing in Queensland specifically and Australia generally, and locals will need to start considering Coolangatta as a getaway destination.
In June the city hosts the "Cooly Rocks On" festival, a two-week 1950s and 1960s nostalgia event which looks perfectly timed for the new service. Coolangatta has half a dozen excellent beaches in its own right and Surfers Paradise is just up the road.
Aussies, meanwhile, might like to consider taking on the St Clair Polar Plunge. July then offers the University Reorientation and the Taste Otago Dunedin Food and Wine Festival.
But a successful air route cannot exist on fits and starts, especially if it is envisaged to be flown three times a week.
To paraphrase Field Of Dreams, it has been built, now passengers must come. Dunedin, as well as wider Otago and Southland, needs to use this service or it will be lost again, most likely forever this time.
Avian all star — the hoiho. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Hoiho reigns supreme
Another attraction our imminent Australian visitors might like to take in is Dunedin’s splendid wildlife: specifically, New Zealand’s new Bird of the Year, the hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin).
While the annual Forest and Bird-organised competition is an amusing piece of fluff, it has a higher purpose: to raise awareness of the precarious existence which many of New Zealand’s native birds lead.
And few have such a slender toehold on existence as the hoiho. It is estimated that there are just 131 pairs of hoiho left on the mainland of New Zealand, and more broadly that there are only a few thousand of the nationally endangered bird left.
As is so often the case with New Zealand’s birdlife humans, and the animals which humans have introduced, are the main threat to the bird.
If Bird of the Year is anything to go by — and it is a competition that the hoiho has won twice — then the will is there to preserve the animal’s habitat on our southern shores.
Hopefully that is matched by much-needed investment to boost hoiho conservation efforts.
