Domestic tourism boost
He also hopes the flights will provide a boost to the hugely popular Queenstown, which drew around three million visitors a year pre-pandemic, with over 60% those from abroad.
However, the resort town, situated in New Zealand's Otago region, "has been doing it tough" due to the lack of international tourists, according to Lightbourne.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Invivo team have found the process of setting up an airline from scratch rather tricky to say the least.
"We've had to talk to some people in the industry about the goings on and the challenges and all that sort of stuff," admits Lightbourne.
"It's a trial for us. But the feedback has been positive. There have been thousands of people registering. We could have sold out the flight 100 times over."
While the debut flight is indeed a "trial," Lightbourne says the team plan to running regular flights on the Auckland to Queenstown route, and hope to add new destinations in the future.
"We have vineyards in Marlborough, which is also the South Island, " he adds. "And in the North Island, we have some in the Hawke's Bay region and Gisborne. We'd love to get some flights out that way later on this year, hopefully."
Founded in 2008, Invivo produces wine from New Zealand, while also working in partnership with growers around the world to make wine from the top producing regions, including the Prosecco region of Veneto, Italy.
The Invivo winery is based in Te Kauwhata, located in the Waikato region, just south of Auckland.