4 | REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Nelson Airport Ltd “The expert advice we’ve received is that loweremissions planes are likely to be heavier on a seat for seat basis and require longer runway lengths to operate with economically viable payloads.” Solar farm ‘stepping stone’ Annual passenger numbers at Nelson Airport this year are tracking towards 850,000. PROUD TO PROVIDE SPECIALIST PLANNING SERVICES TO NELSON AIRPORT LTD ■ Resource Consents ■ Private Plan Changes & Re-zoning ■ Submissions ■ Strategic Policy Development ■ Hearing Commissioner Appointments W planzconsultants.co.nz Christchurch | Auckland | Dunedin Virginia Wright The busiest regional airport in New Zealand outside the main centres, Nelson Airport is also the maintenance hub for Air New Zealand’s turbo prop planes which meant it continued to operate throughout Covid when other regional airports had to close. Its passenger numbers pre-Covid, when Jetstar were still flying into New Zealand’s regional airports, were as high as a million a year. With Covid restrictions a thing of the past they’re now exceeding pre-Covid levels of activity, with numbers this year tracking towards 850,000. “There’s been a strong return of domestic travel, and like all airports we’re enjoying being busy,” says Airport CEO Mark Thompson. He came back from a career overseas in transport and logistics to run the Interislander ferry. He took up his current role as CEO at Nelson Airport five years later, just as Auckland’s four- month Covid lockdown started in August last year, with passenger numbers markedly reduced. In 2019 Nelson Airport’s award-winning new terminal opened, providing the foundation for a continuous improvement plan the airport intends to progress to reach its vision of being “a world-class airport where zero-emission aircraft operate”. Much of the remaining infrastructure of the airport dates back many decades, and Mark is clear that as it is upgraded and updated it should also be future-proofed, particularly with zero-emission aircraft in mind. While there are still a lot of unknowns around exactly what design zero emissions aircraft will take, or more precisely how they’ll be powered, Mark wants Nelson Airport to be well placed to service them in whatever form. “It means we have to invest in infrastructure to support zero emission aircraft, which means having the capacity to allow them to refuel here, whether it’s recharging their batteries, fill up with hydrogen, or some other fueling system. It also means we need to extend our runway, which we know is too short even for current aircraft to operate without constraints says Mark. Nelson Airport is heavily engaged with other airlines and the government as they collectively peer into the future but in the meantime, there is an infrastructural investment they want to get on with. “We’re looking at building a solar farm. One of our objectives is to reduce our own carbon footprint, and you’ll see quite a few airports already building solar farms, like Christchurch, so it’s really about the ecosystem around that: that it can power the terminal and other buildings on the airport to start with, then over time that moves to providing power for planes, or generating the hydrogen to power them or whatever, so it can be a stepping stone to the future with minimal risk,” says Mark. When it comes to future proofing, Mark is also acutely of the need to improve Nelson Airport’s resilience as quickly and efficiently as possible so that it can stand up to increasingly severe weather events. “It’s not just weather events, it’s resilience to earthquakes, tsunamis, all those things. So the other area of focus is to make sure the airport is not only safe but resilient for the next 100 years,” he says. While these essential upgrades take shape, Mark’s focus will also be on achieving something requiring less material investment but which he believes to be just as important. “I commuted through here for five years, so I’ve got a good feel for what’s here, and I’m trying to bring a customer lens to the service we provide. “Rather than just operate as an airport I want people to have an enjoyable experience from the time they turn into the airport to the time they get on the plane,” he says. “At the same time he’s determined that people arriving at the airport should be in no doubt as to where in the world they are, so we can expect in the near future to see the Nelson Airport experience include a sense of that special something that makes Nelson what it is. Nelson Airport CEO Mark Thompson.
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