The new three-year contract commencing this month includes airside buses not previously provided by SkyBus, as well as new on-board information displays for the buses operating to the airport’s value car parks.

Virgin’s regional arm, which primarily operates in Western Australia, did not cancel any of its 194 flights last month, compared to 5.5 per cent cancellations for Virgin mainline services and 5.4 per cent for the group as a whole in a month heavily impacted by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

This season has seen around 3,000 drops by both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, up from 1,399 hours in the previous period, which the state government has attributed to longer and larger fire incidents.

The super-pressure balloon lifted off from Wānaka Airport and will now spend 100 days or more flying around the Southern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes, where it will measure neutral wind in the upper atmosphere.