Transform Your Flight Sim Experience
with In-Depth Tracking & Analysis
Track every flight, analyse your performance,
and master your flying skills with My FS Flights
Get 10 flights free every month!
Tracked and analysed flights over miles
Whangarei Airport lies on the Onerahi peninsula on the eastern side of Whangarei Harbour, some four nautical miles southeast of Whangarei city in Northland, New Zealand. It is a modest regional field with one sealed and one grass runway, serving scheduled air services, general aviation and flight training beneath an AFIS-run circuit. Its history stretches back to wartime RNZAF training operations, making it an interesting stop for pilots exploring Northland's coastline and harbours.
Whangarei Airport serves the city of Whangarei from the suburb of Onerahi, on a peninsula jutting into Whangarei Harbour on Northland's east coast. It is operated as the Whangarei District Airport and today combines scheduled regional air services with general aviation, flight training and recreational flying. For a simulator pilot the field offers an attractive mix of harbour scenery, a sealed main runway and a shorter grass crosswind strip, along with a flying history that runs back to the earliest days of aviation in the district.
The airport sits on the Onerahi peninsula on the eastern side of Whangarei Harbour, about four nautical miles southeast of Whangarei city on the east coast of Northland in New Zealand's North Island. Christchurch Flight Information Service provides flight information cover for the area, and traffic at the field operates under an aerodrome flight information service (AFIS) rather than full air traffic control.
Whangarei has two physical runways. The main runway, 06/24, is a sealed (hard-surfaced) strip 3,666 to 3,756 feet long depending on direction, and is lit for night operations. A secondary grass runway, 14/32, is around 1,577 to 1,616 feet long and is also lit. There is no instrument landing system at the field.
The airport is served by an aerodrome flight information service (AFIS) on 124.9 MHz. The common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) is 118.6 MHz, and an automatic weather information broadcast (AWIB) is available on 119.8 MHz. Christchurch Flight Information Service provides the wider flight information cover for the area.
The airport occupies the Onerahi peninsula, making Whangarei Harbour itself the dominant visual feature for pilots approaching from any direction; the built-up area of Whangarei city lies to the northwest across the harbour.
The first aerodrome serving Whangarei was on Pohe Island in the upper reaches of the harbour, and it was there that Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's aircraft, the Southern Cross, landed in 1928. That site proved unsuitable owing to its boggy, reclaimed ground, and after considering an alternative location at Kensington Park, the current Onerahi site was opened in May 1939. With the outbreak of the Second World War the new airfield was immediately taken over by the RNZAF as RNZAF Station Onerahi, a training base under station commanders including Flight Lieutenant Lou Gates, with pilots practising bombing raids on nearby Matakohe Island and Rat Island. The station was established with three grass runways, and No. 20 Squadron RNZAF formed there in August 1942 flying Hawker Hind biplanes, before disbanding in July 1943. Shortly after the war the airfield was reduced to two runways, 06/24 and 32/14, and converted to public use. National Airways Corporation began twice-daily commercial flights to Auckland in 1948 using Lockheed Electras, switching to de Havilland Dominies in 1950 when the airport proved too small for the Lockheed Lodestar; 10,148 passengers used the airport in 1950. The 06/24 runway was sealed in December 1963 to its present length, enabling DC-3 services, and a new terminal and control tower were built on the northern side of the main runway. Fokker Friendships replaced the DC-3s from 1970, the same year the Northern Districts Aero Club began a competing air taxi service to Auckland under the name Executive Air Taxis, later funding new clubrooms and a hangar in 1977. Air New Zealand's Eagle Airways took over Link services with Embraer Bandeirantes from 1988, prompting the control tower's closure that year amid nationwide budget cuts. Ansett New Zealand competed on the route from 1991 until withdrawing in 1998, after which Eagle Airways expanded its Bandeirante schedule before re-equipping with Beechcraft 1900Ds in 2001 and adding a Wellington service from 2002. Sunair operated services linking Whangarei with Tauranga, Rotorua and Napier from 2007 to 2009, and later ran a Whangarei-Whitianga-via-Claris route in 2015 before it too ceased.
The airport continues to operate under an aerodrome flight information service rather than full control tower coverage. Sunair currently operates scheduled services from Whangarei to Great Barrier Island and Tauranga. The field also supports general aviation activity, including training and recreational flying, from its sealed and grass runways.
