ZL HZL Commenced operations 1975 Founded 1953 | HZL Hazelton Ceased operations 2001 | |
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Fleet size Auster Aiglet; Cessna 310; Piper PA-31 Navajo; Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante; Saab 340; Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner; Shorts 360 | ||
Hazelton Air Services Pty Limited, trading as Hazelton Airlines, was an Australian regional airline which operated until 2001. It was established as an independent airline but by the end of its existence had become a subsidiary of Ansett Australia.
Founded in 1953 by Max Hazelton, alongside his brother Jim, with a single Auster Aiglet aircraft offering charter services from a farm near Toogong, New South Wales, the fledgeling organisation was in 1959 relocated to Cudal (near Orange) in NSW. Its scheduled passenger operations began in 1975 with flights between Orange NSW and Canberra ACT. By the 1980s Hazelton operated a sizeable fleet of piston-engined and turboprop aircraft including Cessna 310s, Piper PA-31-350 Chieftains and Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirantes, Shorts 360's as well as Cessna A188 Ag Husky crop sprayers. In the 1990s Hazelton divested itself of its piston-engined passenger aircraft and associated routes in Western NSW to Air Link of Dubbo (an organisation that was still operating many of the same aircraft when purchased by the successor company to Hazelton, Regional Express, in 2006). At the end of its existence the airline operated an all-turboprop fleet of Saab 340 and Fairchild Metro 23 aircraft.
Following the collapse of its parent company in 2001, the airline was acquired by a consortium known as Australiawide Airlines and was merged with fellow Ansett subsidiary Kendell Airlines to create Regional Express.