Invivo & Co has launched Invivo Air, the world’s first winery airline. The New Zealand-based beverage company, which counts Sarah Jessica Parker and Graham Norton as shareholders and collaborators, will make its first flight domestically in early 2022 with a 34-seat Swedish built Saab plane. The maiden voyage will be a two-hour flight from Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand, to Queenstown in the South Island.
Invivo co-founders Rob Cameron and Tim Lightbourne launched the winery airline to celebrate the reopening of Auckland’s borders this week after they were closed to the rest of New Zealand for 119 days. Home to a third of the country’s population, Auckland lockeddown in August following New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 community transmission in six months.
Priority for seats will be given to Auckland hospitality and tourism staff who have been impacted by the lockdown, members of the public who haven’t seen their South Island family or friends in 2021 due to the border closing, and Invivo shareholders from its crowdfunding campaigns.
“It’s been a tough period of time, particularly for our bars and restaurant customers in both the North and South Island of New Zealand, heavily reliant on local tourism,” said Lightbourne. “Running a flight to the South Island is a way that we can show the public the country is open again for domestic tourism, and at the same time support some of those who have had a particularly tough time of it. We are not ruling out further flights to other New Zealand destinations as well or even international flights one day. At Invivo Air it’s business class in every glass.”
Guests on the trip will enjoy a 24-hour line-up of special experiences planned by Invivo and partners in Queenstown, including a stay at The Hilton Queenstown, and visits to Invivo’s Central Otago growers.
For more information, head over to Invivo’s official website.