Business North March 2021

| 99 REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Whangarei Airport Airport weathers Covid disruption Richard Loader Whangarei Airport is a 10-minute drive to the centre of New Zealand’s northernmost city. L ocated in Whangarei’s very pleasant harbourside suburb of Onerahi and surrounded by well established housing, Whangarei Airport is but a 10-minute drive to the centre of New Zealand’s northern- most city. The busy airport is comprised of a modern air-conditioned terminal, which is also home to a cafeteria that rents space, along with several ancillary buildings and a passen- ger carpark. Remaining airport land is leased to various aviation related businesses along with a com- mercial helicopter business, a range of private aircraft owners, flying clubs and a mainte- nance hangar. Regional airline Sunair Aviation leases a building at the airport and has a contract to fly medical staff from the Northland DHB based in Whangarei Hospital to Kaitaia five days a week. Air New Zealand is the main carrier into the airport and pre-covid four flights touched down onto the runway each weekday, with three per weekend day. Airport Manager, Mike Chubb, says the business community relies heavily on Air New Zealand’s services to get to other parts of the country — primarily the capital. “The business community from the Whangarei District, including private and gov- ernment passengers, is probably the biggest block of customers coming and going through the terminal.” Apart from rent, a significant amount of Whangarei Airport’s revenue is derived from landing fees and because Air New Zealand’s 50-seater aircraft are the biggest planes land- ing their fees form the airport’s biggest source of revenue. Like all airports, Whangarei Airport was significantly impacted by Covid’s level four lockdown with all of Air New Zealand’s service lost over the five weeks of level four lockdown, along with all revenue. “That was a significant loss to us and cascaded down to the rental car people who shut down as well. The café closed and the car parking revenue dried up. “The small recreational private flyers were unable to operate. The only people able to fly were the essential services like rescue helicop- ters and top dressing planes. Financially that really hit us between the teeth. “For the last calendar year the passenger numbers through the terminal would be just over half what they would normally be on average. “We did lose a rental car tenant and another rental car company that was looking at ex- panding and leasing more land off us has put its plans on hold.” Mike says while a pessimistic outlook was forecast during the height of the disruption caused by Covid the airport is in fact doing significantly better that was anticipated. “Air New Zealand is running at about 75% of its flight operations and will return to 100% in February and recreational users have now returned to normal. “We are quite busy with private operators and recreational flying of microlites. So there’s a lot of lighter aircraft coming and going each day. It can be a very busy airport.” The peninsula suburb of Onerahi has been Whangarei Airport’s home since 1939 in a different age of New Zealand’s aviation. “We’re limited on what we can do through our district plan in terms of development of the airport. Because we’re surrounded by houses in a pleasant seaside suburb we need to contain noise levels. The District Plan is quite clear that no activities on the airport can take place unless it is aviation related and we don’t have enough land to go industrial anyway.” Mike explains that the District Council is looking at the possibility of relocating the airport and some land has been procured just north of Whangarei City for that purpose. “That’s probably a 15-year plan and the pro- ject cost prohibitively high, so it may or may not eventuate.” visit us at: www.rs.kiwi.nz | contact us on: 0800 265 000 or info@rs.kiwi.nz As New Zealand’s leading provider of turf, parks and facilities management, we maintain, create and manage parks, landscapes and sports surfaces across the Aotearoa landscape. We are proudly Kiwi owned and operated and serving our communities since 1992. Enviromark Diamond Status accredited for the 12 th consecutive year and proud partners of the Blue Light Foundation and Recreation Aotearoa