About Us

AIANZ is the peak membership body that represents the interest of the commercial aviation industry in New Zealand. Founded in 1950, our overall goal is to support a safe, sustainable, and resilient sector. So, while safety is front and centre of everything we do, we also enable our members and the wider aviation sector to grow and innovate.

The membership of the organisation includes around 300 operators from small to large businesses in many sectors of the industry. They include agriculture, animal recovery, scheduled and charter services, freight, heavy lifting, photography, search and rescue, surveillance, and tourism. Our membership also includes companies that service, maintain, design or manufacture for these sectors. In more recent times, UAVs, largely drones, have become an important part of AIANZ’s diverse membership.

The AIANZ is organised into six divisions (see Divisions tab) which are:

  1. NZ Agricultural Aviation Association (NZAAA)
  2. NZ Helicopter Association (NZHA)
  3. UAVNZ (Drones)
  4. Training and Development (T&D)
  5. Service, Supply and Engineering Division (SSE)
  6. Operational Division

Within the membership, there are also many individuals, including pilots and other people who have an ongoing or past involvement in the aviation industry.

Read the 2024-2025 Annual Report here

Read the 2023-2024 Annual Report here

Who do we work with?

To advance and protect the interests of our members, we work closely with the regulator agency, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the policy agency, the Ministry of Transport (MOT), and other agencies that have a stake in the success of our sector. Such agencies include the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and specifically Immigration New Zealand. More recently, our relationships at a local government level with territorial local authorities (TLAs) are critical given their involvement in aviation matters at a local level.

Testimonials

Thank you for organising the senior person workshop. I had my senior person interview for Flight operations manager at Skyline aviation on Tuesday and I believe this course was a big part of helping me to be successful in the interview.
Outside of that it was great to be in the room with a bunch of different people in the industry who have either been in these roles or hold these roles currently and being able to bounce ideas off of them.

-Ryan Adams, Skyline Aviation