90th Anniversary Flight Celebrations at Inchbonnie

Inchbonnie is a small farming settlement 16 kilometres West of the Otira Gorge, and it was from an airfield here that New Zealand's first scheduled air service took off 90 years ago.  Captain Bert Mercer of Air Travel (NZ) Ltd  flew in to the Inchbonnie airfield on 18 December 1934 to pick up two passengers who had come from Christchurch by train and who had alighted at the nearby Inchbonnie Railway Station, Messrs G B Christie and H Worrall.  They then flew to Hokitika and on to Franz Josef on the first scheduled airline service in New Zealand, returning later in the day in time to catch the train back to Christchurch.

On 18 December 2024, 90 years later,  a commemorative flight was carried out over the original route with an over flight of Inchbonnie.  Amazingly the flight was carried out by the same aircraft that flew the original flight - the DH 83 Fox Moth ZK-ADI which is owned by the Croydon Aircraft Company but is painted in its original Air Travel (NZ) Ltd colours.  The above photo is from the Grey District Council's Facebook page.