Controller Shortage “Punky” is one of my excellent regular RAAF contacts. He is a fighter jock, and I will leave it to him to answer a question that has filtered in from a large number of military aircraft monitors, that is: “How are military tactical callsigns decided on; not the rootwords, but the numbers tagged

Controller Shortage The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is having difficulty holding onto its air traffic control officers. Due to the mass exodus of trained controllers to AirServices Australia (ASA), the RAAF has had to take extraordinary steps to maintain an operational air traffic service. Over recent years, the declining number of controllers has caused

Freedom Air Launches Air New Zealand wholly owned Mount Cook Group’s newly established charter airline, Freedom Air International, launched services between Australia and New Zealand on December 8. Freedom Air is initially offering twice weekly charters between Sydney and Auckland and weekly charters between Sydney/Christchurch, Sydney/Hamilton, Sydney/Wellington and Brisbane/Hamilton, which are operated by a Boeing

Kiwi Airlines Boeing 757 Enters Service Kiwi Travel International Airlines took delivery of Boeing 757-2Y0 G-OOOU at its Hamilton base on November 21 after the aircraft ferried in from Manchester via Calgary and Honolulu. The Boeing 757 has been wet leased from Air 2000 in the UK and is fitted in a 233 economy class