New South Wales will soon have a second gateway to New Zealand, with three new flights per week from Newcastle set to start later this year.
Virgin Australia today announced it would operate the services to Auckland during the peak holiday period from November 22, 2018 to February 17, 2019.
Earlier this year, Virgin and Air New Zealand announced they would end their seven-year Trans-Tasman alliance in October.
Last month, Qantas and Air New Zealand revealed they had struck a codeshare deal that "leverages the strengths of each carrier's domestic networks".
Newcastle Airport chief executive Peter Cock described the addition of the route as "a huge step forward".
It is not the first time flights have been offered from Newcastle to New Zealand — in 2001 now-defunct low-cost carrier Freedom Air trialled the route.
But the flights were stopped the following year, and there are again viability concerns.
Neil Hansford, the chairman of airline consultancy firm Strategic Aviation Solutions, said having only three services a week was "not a proper international connection".
"Three flights a week is very problematic because you don't have any flexibility so, as for bringing business people, it doesn't work," he said.
"Unless you can operate at least six days a week, three days a week is just tokenism. To me, it's a baby step.
"When Virgin step up to run six or seven days a week, all year round, then I can say yes, the airport has delivered it's international ambitions."
Tourism authorities estimate there are about 2.845 million travellers moving between Australia and New Zealand annually and Dr Cock said the airport was keen to get a slice of the market.
