timboeing707: I am not sure if you remember the Kiwi Airlines V Air New Zealand War, Air New Zealand beat Kiwi Air into the dirt, and now they have nothing to do with "no frills travel" eg Freedom air, and Hamilton has no International flights.
Very aware of Kiwi and its demise. While some of the "blame" can be laid at Air New Zealand's door Kiwi didn't help itself either.
Actually Air New Zealand still does no frills travel. When you book you have a choice of various seat options from seat only (no frills option) right through to all the bells and whistles.
Hamilton doesn't have international flights not because of anything Air New Zealand did to Kiwi but because of Hamilton's proximity to Auckland with more options time and destination wise.
Virgin tried operating internationally out of Hamilton for a while, assisted by a council/airport authority "subsidy" but when the subsidy ran out the flights stopped.
Air New Zealand tried it out of Rotorua but couldn't make it work even with financial support from the Rotorua ratepayers.
As I said earlier if the service needs financial support from the local council to be viable then it's not likely to ever to stand on its own two legs.
I'll also repeat what I said earlier
Councils and airports keep putting up their airport fees and make it harder for the incumbent to operate at a price the public are prepared to pay, yet they'll bend over backwards to subsidise a new entrant competitor. Really weird thinking. If the market was there the competitor wouldn't need any help.
It doesn't make sense to me. There must be some good spin doctors at JQ