The lineage of Qantas New Zealand and Qantas Jetconnect.

 

1984 Newmans Airways Limited, trading as Newmans Air and based in Nelson, New Zealand was set up by the Newmans Group, best known for their Coach Tour operations. Newmans Air operated two de Havilland DHC-7 aircraft between 1985 and 1987.
1985 Newmans Air commenced operations on February 13th with 3 flights a day between          Christchurch and Queenstown, 2 flights between Christchurch and Rotorua and 1 flight between Rotorua and Auckland. Stops at Glentanner on the Queenstown services were added a few months after startup.
1986 Ansett Australia purchased a 50% shareholding in Newmans Air together with Brierley Investments (27.5%) and formed a new company, Bilmans Management, to operate as Ansett New Zealand. In December, the 2 Dash-7s were replaced with 2 DHC-8-102s.
1987 Ansett New Zealand commenced main-trunk operations in New Zealand using 4             Boeing 737-100s (later supplemented with 2 B737-200s). The DHC-8 fleet was increased until 7 aircraft were being utilized.
1989 Ansett New Zealand started to replace the ageing Boeing 737s with a fleet of British Aerospace 146s (3 x 200s and 9 x 300s) for main trunk operations with the DHC-8s operating the New Zealand regional services.
1996 Air New Zealand made a bid to purchase Ansett Australia. The New Zealand regulators stipulated that before the purchase could proceed Ansett Australia and Ansett New Zealand had to be separated. Ansett New Zealand was therefore sold to News Corporation.
2000

On September 3rd, Ansett New Zealand collapsed and the airline was sold to a new          company set up by a group of New Zealand businessman, and named Tasman Pacific       Airlines of New Zealand.

On September 4th operations were commenced by Tasman Pacific trading as Qantas New Zealand, under a franchise agreement with Qantas Australia. This was the first time that Qantas Australia had given permission for their name to be used in a franchise operation. Eight of the BAe146s were leased from Bilmans Management plus six of the DHC-8s leased from Ansett.
2001

On April 21st, just 203 days after startup, Tasman Pacific Airlines trading as Qantas         New Zealand suddenly closed their doors for the last time and ceased all operations.                            

Qantas Australia immediately withdrew their name from the franchise. However within       days they had brought in to New Zealand a small fleet of Boeing 737-300s to offer a skeleton service on main trunk routes to honour tickets purchased prior to the collapse of Qantas New Zealand.
2002 In July Qantas set up Jetconnect, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas Australia,          based in Auckland. This airline commenced operations in October with a fleet of Boeing 737-300s and later Boeing 737-400s covering the main trunk New Zealand services, until these were taken over by Jetstar Airways (another Qantas subsidiary) on June 10, 2009.
Jetconnect crews then operated selected trans-Tasman services using their Boeing 737-400s.
2014 With the replacement of the Boeing 737-400s, Jetconnect crews commenced operating       selected Qantas Mainline Boeing 737-800s on trans-Tasman services.