Auckland Airport is the first in the country to have LED lights for low visibility landings.
Video / Auckland Airport
Auckland Airport has swapped out old lights and switched to LED runway lights in a $70m project.
For the length of the 3.6km runway, around 600 light-emitting diode (LED) lights have replaced a halogen lamp system.
Work was all done in the middle of the night when the runway is not in use.
Auckland Airport chief infrastructure officer Susana Fueyo Suarez said the new runway lights were ‘’a brilliant outcome’' after months of work during the short, twice-weekly runway maintenance closures.
The runway lighting conversion required a high degree of technical skill, but the physical work could only be done in the early hours between 1.30am and 4.30am on Saturday and Monday when the runway closed for maintenance.
“This is the only time we have no scheduled flights at Auckland Airport, and it means the project team must be highly organised – ready to go after the final flight arrival or departure and completely clear of the runway when it reopens a few short hours later,” she said.
The 240 new LED in-ground runway centreline, 186 touchdown zone, 52 threshold, 124 runway edge and 18 runway end lights now in place will be individually tracked and monitored with all details digitally recorded.
Every fortnight fittings are checked with a torque wrench to ensure the bolts holding them in place are locked tight, the lenses cleaned using compressed air and a baking soda mixture to clean off the rubber marks from aircraft tyres that quickly builds up, and brightness tested.
The airport said the new lights and systems were critical for achieving reliability.
Nathan Kavumbura, senior airfield ground lighting and power engineer, says LEDs provide crisper and sharper lighting. Photo / Auckland Airport
With the runway conversion to LED lights now complete, the upgrade programme now focused on the thousands of halogen lights across the rest of the airfield, including taxiways, the apron and aircraft stands (parking spaces for planes), with a replacement programme phased over the next 10 years.
As well as the safety benefits, the LED lighting contributed towards Auckland Airport’s strategy of investing in low carbon options as part of its infrastructure renewal programme.
The LED lighting used up to 70% less energy and had a longer life expectancy (at 75,000 hours) compared to tungsten halogen lamps (5000 hours).
Alongside the lighting upgrade, a new power centre was under construction at the western end of the airfield replacing a power centre dating back to the airport’s construction in the 1960s.
Set for completion late next year, the new power centre should add resilience and support the expansion of the airfield to the north of the international terminal and longer-term, links to a future cargo precinct and second runway, Fueyo Suarez said.
