flying high, with a helicopter view

800 531 In Good Company | Northern Rivers
air t&g logo

Air T&G
210 Southern Cross Drive, Ballina Byron Gateway Airport

www.airtg.com.au/

Visit Ballina Northern Rivers-01
flying high, with a helicopter view

Northern Rivers is well known for its breathtaking natural beauty, and imagine if your day at the office involved enjoying these views from the air.

This is the sweet reality for Georgie and Tim Latimer of AIR T&G, a helicopter service based at Ballina Airport, that runs everything from tourist tours and fire fighting, to power line surveys and aerial mustering, and also operates a hugely successful flight school.

“You have to pinch yourself sometimes,” Georgie says. “By the time you go from the beaches around Byron Bay and right up to Mount Warning, then south to Evans Head and the rivers inland – it’s all so stunning,” she says.

Georgie and Tim were aerial mustering cattle in WA and the NT when they decided to set up their own business somewhere on the east coast. Northern Rivers was a strategic choice because there was no competition between Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast.

“It also just happens to be a beautiful and amazing part of the world to live in which makes it worthwhile doing business here,” Georgie says.

“We then picked Ballina because the council were so welcoming, the housing prices were affordable, and we could see that the Ballina Byron Airport was growing,” Georgie says, adding that the region’s growth has been even larger and faster than they expected. The business also enjoyed rapid growth, doubling each year for its first five years from 2006, with even larger growth in the most recent two years. AIR T&G now employs five pilots full-time as well as an office manager, and casual pilots added to the team during the busy fire-fighting season.

In 2007, Georgie and Tim added the helicopter flight school, and this flight-training arm is now the busiest component of their work, making up 70 per cent of the business.

“We ended up being inundated with people wanting to train with us,” Georgie says. “It was really unexpected.” Most of the helicopter pilot trainees travel from outside the region, and enjoy the accommodation included with the training. “They’re mostly country boys and girls who move here specifically to train with us then go out and get jobs in the bush.”

The tourist flights and surveying parts of the business draw interest from closer to home.

“We have so much local support for our services,” Georgie says.

“Whether it’s locals who buy gift certificates for our helicopter flights, or people who use us for photography work, we’ve really enjoyed naturally growing our business with a region that’s growing.”

air t&g ballina helicpoters 002
air t&g ballina helicpoters

Share this story

Read more stories

Spirit of Byron in a bottle

 2560 1707 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Cawarra Cosmetics
Cawarra Cosmetics has been a leading manufacturer of Australian skincare, personal care and cleaning products in the region for more than 40 years.

husk distillers tweed 001

beauty and the bottle

 1280 853 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Husk Distillers
The Husk Distillers story starts in the tropical paradise of the Caribbean. Paul and his wife Mandaley Perkins were on holiday in 2009 and discovered…

ahead of time on equality and agility

 1000 667 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Hurford Hardwood
When Olive Hurford told the bank manager she’d be looking after the accounts of her husband’s new building company, the story goes…

From cobblestones to all-terrain cranes

 1200 900 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Wicks and Parker
Fast approaching 100 years old, the Wicks family business has helped build motorways and carry out emergency bushfire repairs, but it once hammered out steel bands for horse-drawn carriage wheels.

Alstonville quality meats image 1

main street royalty reigns

 2000 1333 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Alstonville Quality Meats
There’s a giggle in the undertone of conversation when Ashley and Tina Thomson share their claim to fame as being the multi-award winning Sausage Kings…

A planet of business diversity

 2016 1512 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Tropical Fruit World
It’s been almost 50 years since Robert and Valorie Brinsmead bought the 200-acre farm in Murwillumbah.

meme productions featured image

world class creatives

 1000 750 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Mememe Productions
The piece of advice that dirtgirlworld creator, Cate McQuillen, likes to share with other creative entrepreneurs in the region tells much about her story…

A collaborator at heart

 940 627 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Table Under A Tree
Georgina Inwood credits the evolution of her business, Table Under a Tree, to her ability to “take stock while still running at a million miles an hour”.

cumulus vfx byron 002

effective creatives have all the fun

 1000 750 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Cumulus VFX
They’ve walked the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Hoges. Gone down the garden path with Peter Rabbit. Flown Katie Holmes over…

Keeping it real in the Tweed

 1706 2560 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Tweed Real Food
Tweed Real Food is a business launched in 2018 from a desire to be resilient. Little did founder Julia Foyster know how prescient her plan would turn out to be.

grafton_physio_business_story_001

let’s get physical

 2000 1165 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Grafton Physio + Sport
You know you’re in good hands when you visit your physiotherapist and she turns out to be a world-class athlete. That’s the case for those who…

yaru water tweed

building bridges with water

 1600 1067 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Yaru Water
“This unique partnership between an Indigenous family and a non-Indigenous family enabled Yaru Water to start changing the way the procurement…

Hovering across the wave of success

 1139 749 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Fliteboard
It was meant to be an extended break for David Trewern and his family. A chance to rest and reset in Byron Bay after decades of building and selling fast-growing digital marketing agencies. But as he looked out over Belongil beach in 2014, an idea struck him.

Community connection runs deep

 1644 848 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Connect Business Solutions
Connect Business Solutions can be thought of as the glue that holds a business community together.

following her art’s desires

 2560 2198 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Bingara Gallery
If she wasn’t painting wild animals and birds, artist Angela Parr, 62, would most likely be rescuing them, healing them, or advocating for them…

an epic adventure into healing honey

 1191 893 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Gather By
Gather By is a closed-loop regenerative agribusiness that works with beekeepers and landholders in NSW and Queensland, and investors around Australia to produce and market rare, pure and potent Australian Manuka honey…

herb blanchard haulage

in for the long haul

 1024 682 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Herb Blanchard Haulage
If you happen to be in the ‘jacaranda city’ of Grafton or its surrounds and you see a big blue truck out on the roads, the chances are its part of the…

In Ventura we trust

 2500 1667 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

Ventura Brewing
Ventura is a symbol of luck, chance and good fortune – and while Ventura Brewing’s two founders have had a good dose of all three – it’s mostly been a lot of hard work and focus to launch this craft kombucha brewery amid a global pandemic.

tripadeal_byron_bay

fastest growing, remains humble and local

 1000 667 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

TripADeal
For TripADeal, the figures speak for themselves: revenue in excess of $100million for 2017; 75,000 travellers sent to various…

glass lab tweed heads 002

riding the wave of success

 1000 661 In Good Company | Northern Rivers

The Glass Lab
Adam Wessel may have worked in surfboard factories since the age of 16, but it was a stint in the luxury yachting industry that sowed the…

Start Typing

X