Passenger numbers are recovering quickly at Auckland International Airport. Photo / Michael Craig
Planning airport infrastructure decades ahead was never easy, but now it's more complicated than ever before.
While airlines have always encountered speed bumps, there had been a consistent upward trend line for airports' core customers.
But Covid-19 completely derailed that, and now the scale and speed of the rebuild has defied forecasts. Anyone planning an airport now faces sleepless nights, especially with the addition of issues such as aviation's rapid digitisation, the move towards sustainable flying and the push to build a more diversified workforce.
That's what is in Mary-Liz Tuck's in-tray.
Her new title - general manager of strategic infrastructure planning and transformation at Auckland International Airport - is a big one, and so is the job.
She is now drawing on her years of experience as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, which grew into operational management at one of the country's best-known manufacturers and now to overseeing planning of the country's aviation gateway.
Ideally, master plans would be set out every five to seven years, but now these big documents need to be augmented annually.
In 2014 the company released a vision for the next 30 years - the Airport of the Future - which involved spending billions of dollars on infrastructure, including a second runway, as passenger numbers were forecast to triple to 40 million in 30 years.
But the airport put the brakes on most of the spending when the pandemic hit in early 2020.
Tuck had started at the airport at the beginning of the previous year, as general manager of corporate services and general counsel.
"During that first year there was a massive amount of infrastructure - we were starting building an integrated terminal. And then Covid hit," she says.
From rapid growth, the priority changed to surviving the worst crisis in the airport company's history.
Tuck was heavily involved in the late-night phone meetings with international financiers to raise $1.2 billion to shore up its balance sheet, and instead of recruiting staff she led the restructuring that resulted in a third of the nearly 500-strong airport company staff losing their jobs.
By August of the following year the airport had committed to four anchor projects as part of its wider infrastructure programme:
• $160 million in upgrades to roading and new transit system (Northern Network and SH20B improvements)
• $1 billion-plus new domestic hub
• Approximately $200m transport hub
• Around $75m in ongoing upgrades to the existing domestic terminal
However, it also spelled out other work that had been parked. Projects which remained on hold were:
• Expanded international airfield and taxiway capacity
• New cargo precinct
• The new international arrivals area
• A second runway.
The second runway, to the north of the existing one, was first consented in 2002, and in 2014 was forecast to be needed as early as 2030.
Tuck says that just before the pandemic struck, the company had been moving into the detailed planning and design phase, driven by aircraft movements.
"Obviously with the pandemic that work has all changed - so what we're doing at the moment is working through re-forecasting. There's a lot of looking out into the future and where we think the recovery will come."
This involves talking to airlines about their growth plans. The International Air Transport Association this year forecast that traveller numbers would exceed 2019 levels by 2025. Although Auckland Airport's forecasts are not that optimistic, traffic volumes have built quickly since New Zealand borders re-opened. International capacity is back to about 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
The buzz at the airport now contrasts sharply with what was happening a year ago. The government's slow-to-start vaccine rollout as an outbreak of the Delta variant forced Auckland's longest lockdown meant the airport was largely a ghost town. Back then, it was handling passenger numbers on par with when it first opened in 1966.
Throughout much of the year, international passenger movements were down to around 1000 a day compared to the pre-pandemic figure of 30,000.
Back then Tuck was at the forefront of dealing with issues unique to airports, at the very front line of the border. Although numbers coming through were low, there were strict rules for airport staff.
"Outside of the airports, businesses didn't have the heavy international face that we had at Auckland Airport. We had a lot of workers who were subject to the health orders and who were subject to the compulsory vaccinations."
She says about 95 per cent of the workers were very supportive of the vaccination programme and the company worked hard on convincing other staff to get the jab.
"I do believe that got us through that pandemic. I think it was really important to do that."
With some other big firms, Auckland Airport was also at the forefront of introducing and pushing for rapid antigen testing (Rat) as a less invasive and more cost-effective way of testing its workers. Rat testing eventually became widespread.
"Now we all take it for granted, but at the time it was a massive shift and change of policies," says Tuck. "They were interesting times."
Tuck has a legal and commerce background.
She's been a mergers and acquisitions lawyer in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom, where she worked at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
Back in New Zealand she worked in the same field for Harmos Horton Lusk before moving to Fisher & Paykel Appliances as in-house counsel at the time of the Haier takeover.
"That's when I really moved away from law into other roles. Across the years I led customer experience, transformation and quality so spent a lot of time in China," she says.
It was from those varied roles that she went to AIA.
"Because I had such heavy operational roles at Fisher & Paykel, I was able to sit across people and capability, health and safety and public relations and government relations."
Another positive spinoff from changing jobs was not having to travel so frequently to China.
"Coming to the airport I didn't have to travel as much with two children (now teenage sons) which was quite important to me," says Tuck.
Her new role covers master planning, sustainability and transformation.
"We're currently in consultation with airlines about our 10-year capital plan, and working through what that looks like with them."
This comes as the pandemic-triggered freeze will next year lift on aeronautical prices – always a source of intense negotiation between the airport and airlines.
The airport is also in late-stage negotiations with airlines over details of the integrated domestic jet terminal, a $1b-plus project at the eastern end of the international terminal and on course for completion by the end of the decade.
Also under way is a transport hub on the site of the main carpark in front of the international terminal, a $300m-plus development with car parks, bus stops and provision for rapid transit, such as the proposed light rail system.
"We have future-proofed so that light rail comes and has a walking path straight through the transport hub into the terminal," says Tuck.
Asked whether the airport, as a beneficiary of light rail, should chip in to the $14b (and counting) cost of any project that does eventuate, she says: "I don't think we are necessarily [the beneficiary]; I think the travelling public is the beneficiary of that."
Also under way at the northeastern edge of the airport precinct is Mānawa Bay, a $200m project that will house 100–plus outlet stores and due for completion in 2024.
Although some of the big building jobs are back on, Tuck says it is equally important not to lose sight of the master plan, which includes a big emphasis on sustainability.
The airport could further electrify its operations but the big gains for aviation in cutting carbon emissions will be widespread use of alternative ways of powering aircraft.
This would include sustainable aviation fuel (Saf) for long-haul aircraft, could include rechargeable battery power for regional flights, and possibly hydrogen for a range of planes. She says the airport must plan for all propulsion types.
While Saf can be dropped into the existing fuel infrastructure, the airport is also looking at how to get more electricity into the site. Generating its own power from solar panels on the extensive roof space will meet some demand, but to more fully electrify the airport in the future it will have to import power.
That electricity needs to be generated from renewable sources.
Another area where she says the airport can be transformative is the makeup of its workforce and the opportunities it can provide for the community of South Auckland, where it is based.
"We've got really critical targets for us around the diversity of thought that we want to get into our leadership here. We've got targets around females coming into the leadership team and building that really strong pipeline of females and Māori-Pasifika leaders," she says.
"When you're looking at my vision of 2030 there's lots of things that I would like to see done differently to what we are now and I think that people side of things is critical."
The airline sold its last slots at Heathrow in 2020.