Hamilton Airport wins New Zealand Airport Award for business strategy during Covid-19

Hamilton Airport CEO Mark Morgan and Chairman Barry Harris. Photo / Stephen Barker, Barker Photography

Hamilton Airport has won the New Zealand Airport Award in the category Commercial and Non-aeronautical Initiative of the Year for its successful business strategy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Thanks to the strategy, the airport was able to maintain levels of customer service, keep its staff in jobs and continue to invest, even with no flights for two months.

Waikato Regional Airport Ltd (WRAL) chief executive Mark Morgan says it was pleasing to see the Hamilton Airport's success recognised on a national level.

"While some of the larger, international airports have a similar approach, we are the only regional airport to have progressed this far."

In 2017, the airport's board and management team made the call to develop a strategic plan that focused on other things besides aviation to protect the aviation business.

Morgan says: "That... diversification strategy is what we measure our investments and decisions against.

"And frankly, given Covid-19 and its devastating impact on airports, that strategy saved us from a very poor financial result."

The diversification strategy focused on key points like optimising the airport's geographic location through property sales and leases, implementing a 10-year rolling financial model and investment plan and supporting regional tourism development initiatives.

Despite the strategy, Morgan says the airport's core purpose has not changed.

"At our heart, we want to operate a first-class, safe and compliant regional airport which is financially self-sustaining and which provides dividends to our shareholders – and we've largely done that.

"But only because we own a diversified portfolio of business interests including property development, hotel operation and airport retail. We're also a major landlord with more than 50 tenancies."

Hamilton Airport is owned by five Waikato councils. Photo / Hamilton and Waikato Tourism

If WRAL had been relying solely on aeronautical interests to get it through the past few years, the company would be in "dire straits", Morgan says.

When Covid-19 arrived in March 2020 and shut down airports, existing property interests threw Hamilton Airport a lifeline.

"In fact, April 2020 was a record month in terms of revenue, thanks to income from our farm crop harvest and revenue from the Jet Park MIQ contract," Morgan says.

"That meant that, despite Covid, we could maintain levels of customer service, keep our staff in jobs and continue to invest, even with no flights for two months. That's quite extraordinary and is something I'm really, really proud of."

The decision to repurpose the Jet Park Hamilton Airport Hotel as a managed isolation facility was a "huge windfall which kept the coffers full", Morgan says.

"That decision ... gave us an income pipeline. And along with land sales, that gave us the confidence to continue to invest in our core aeronautical business in a way we would have been otherwise unable to afford."

After two years out of action to paying guests, the refurbished Jet Park Hotel reopened last month to strong bookings.

Morgan says: "Covid-19 was hugely challenging and its impacts will be felt for a while yet. But in many ways, the pandemic gave us an impetus to turbo-charge our diversification strategy. In doing so, we've protected our core business and have ended up in a much stronger, more secure financial position."

Hamilton Airport is owned by the Hamilton City, Waikato District, Matamata-Piako District, Waipā District and Ōtorohanga District councils.