Runway costs spread among users

By DANIEL RIORDAN

Auckland International Airport plans to spread the cost of building a new runway across users and others who benefit from the airport's activities, says managing director John Goulter.

The airport on Wednesday won permission to build a second runway to the north of the existing one at Mangere, but only after making major concessions to allay the noise concerns of residents and schools.

The deal approved by the Environment Court includes paying for sound insulation and ventilation to 2000 homes and seven schools in the flight path.

The cost of this has been estimated at $48 million, but Mr Goulter says it is likely to be much less.

He wants the cost recovered over 10 years by levying a wide base of airport users and beneficiaries.

"General worldwide practice is to recover noise mitigation costs on a user-pays basis, where the users are more than just aircraft."

In Sydney, for example, passengers pay a tax as part of their ticket price for noise mitigation.

Some airports charge extra for carparking.

Mr Goulter said who Auckland would charge had not been decided, but the cost would not be great.

A preliminary estimate suggested that if the airport were to charge only passengers - "and we're not going to charge only passengers" - the charge would be less than $1 a journey.

Building the runway would not start for six or seven years.

The new runway will be only 2150m long, compared with the 3000m the company had wanted, but Mr Goulter said that would not pose problems.

Only the very biggest planes - Boeing 747s, 777s and the new Airbuses - would not be able to land on a runway that would be about the same length as Wellington's.

But they could use the existing runway, which would have fewer aircraft using it.

He said the plan "more than adequately accommodates the economic development and growth of New Zealand for the next 50 years. I don't envisage having to turn away any planes."

The consent process for the second runway, which began in 1994, had been "very detailed".

But it had allowed an outcome that all parties to the process could be congratulated on.

Credit Suisse First Boston research head Rob Bode said the deal appeared to be in line with market expectations.

There had been compromises, but Auckland was more fortunate than many of its international peers by having room for expansion.

Airport shares fell 1c yesterday to $3.93. The runway deal was announced after the market closed on Wednesday.