Civil Aviation boss hits back at fears over landing at Queenstown Airport

Queenstown Airport. Photo / Getty Images

Passengers should have confidence landing at Queenstown Airport, despite its runway's safety areas being the minimum length allowed, the Civil Aviation Authority says.'

Civil Aviation director Graeme Harris was responding to comments made at a public meeting in Queenstown on Monday that heard it was only a matter of time before an aircraft went off the end of the runway.

Mr Harris said the airport's runway end safety areas (Resas) met New Zealand's rules for existing runways and those of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

"Those standards require runways to have a minimum of 90m-long Resa areas at both ends of the runway strip, which Queenstown Airport has in place."

More than 200 people attended the meeting about an alternative "master plan" for the airport in which it would be relocated and the site redeveloped for housing.

The plan's co-author, architect and urban designer David Jerram, told the audience a New Zealand Airline Pilots' Association officer had told him it was a case of "not if, but when" an aircraft went off the end of the runway.

Mr Jerram told the Otago Daily Times yesterday it was not the only alarming comment about the runway's safety areas he had heard from an aviation insider.

"Another pilot, who flies in here on A320s, told me he doubted you'd find many pilots who didn't think there would be an incident before long."

Such an incident could be as minor as an aircraft rolling off the end of the runway.

"But it could also be much more catastrophic."

It did not make sense to spend millions on further developing an airport with a runway of "bare minimum" length, he said. Any new airport, or a major upgrade such as that proposed for Wanaka Airport, would require 240m safety areas.

However, Mr Harris said Queenstown Airport had undergone 10 audits in the past five years and "the CAA is satisfied that the safety infrastructure in place in Queenstown is appropriate and sufficient to give passengers, airlines and the airport community confidence".

The Queenstown Airport Corporation said on Monday it was proposing turbo-prop and narrow-body jet flights at Wanaka from 2025.