A new display at Tauranga aviation museum, Classic Flyers, is officially opened today with the exhibit featuring the history of former domestic New Zealand airline NAC.

National Airways Corporation was the national carrier from 1947 until 1978 when it amalgamated with Air New Zealand.

Paul Bowe checks in at the new NAC display – a mock airport counter – with his own piece of history, a NAC inscribed spoon.

About 100 former NAC employees are gathering at the museum for a luncheon and unveiling of the permanent exhibit.

Former NAC marketing and sales manager Graham Lister is organising the event and says to have this turnout some 33 years on is a tribute to the company's culture.
'It was a family style business and it's a testament to that that we have about 100 coming to it,” says Graham.

The airline had a strong connection with the Bay of Plenty with the Auckland Tauranga route a popular journey.

A plane on this route is also the subject of New Zealand's worst ever tragedy in the country's air space, with 23 fatalities, when a DC3 plane crashed in the Kaimais in 1963.

Graham Lister at the new Classic Flyers display.