Copyright Notice

All photos on MRC Aviation are copyrighted to me, or the photographer of that photo. All photos that are downloaded from MRC Aviation are strictly intended for personal use only. Anyone, including the media, who would like to use any of the photos on the Blog, for any purpose other than personal use, must contact me to obtain permission to use the photo(s). Any photo not taken by me, that was obtained from another photographer or another source, that appears on this Blog, will be duly acknowledged as such.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Airbus A320 ZK-OJK arrives back in NZ


Airbus A320 ZK-OJK has arrived back in New Zealand following a 6 year stint flying in Brazil with TAM registered PR-MBJ. 

Some historical data on ZK-OJK:


Freedom Air entered a new era on June 04 2005 with the first of four Airbus A320’s arriving at Auckland. Resplendent in the carrier’s bright canary yellow scheme with blue tail and engines, ZK-OJK touched down just before 1700 at the conclusion of its ferry flight from Toulouse via Gander, Denver, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Apia. As “Freedom 6390”, the Airbus was flown by Freedom Air pilots Trevor Ancell and Lincoln Parkinson with Air NZ’s Manager of Technical Support Ian Varcoe. The Airbus was hangered at Auckland and departed for Hamilton on June 06 as “Freedom 7221” with the aircraft carrying Air NZ and Freedom Air staff on a brief scenic flight of the Coromandel Peninsular.

ZK-OJK entered service with Freedom Air on June 08 flying as flight 732 to Nadi from Hamilton, then to Wellington, back to Nadi and home to Hamilton.


Its last flight with Freedom was conducted 12 April 2006 when it arrived at Christchurch from Coolangatta as SJ966. It then ferried to Auckland 28 April 2006 as SJ7124 and conducted an acceptance flight two days later. Its departure was then somewhat protracted and it finally left on 09 July registered as PR-MBJ and flown by Southern Cross Aviation as SXA617 departing Auckland for Papeete, Easter Island, Lima and Macapa, Brazil.


At the conclusion of operations with TAM, the Airbus A320 was ferried to Singapore/Seletar by its owners where it was then registered EI-EWD to Brookdell Ltd.  During the latter part of April the aircraft flew an acceptance flight at Seletar, still on the EI register before becoming ZK-OJK on 03 May 2012.  

It ferried as NZ6390 from Seletar to Cairns on 03 May and onto Christchurch 04 May where it will receive additional attention with Air NZ which will include the installation of inflight entertainment and a 168 seat configuration.

A photo of ZK-OJK at Cairns can be found here:


at