Pilots are worried expansion plans at Wellington Airport could risk safety.
The New Zealand Air Line Pilots' Association says a run-off area for the larger planes that the airport hopes to attract by extending the runway is not long enough.
The "runway end safety area" should meet internationally recommended standards of 240m, not the 90m that has been signed off by the Civil Aviation Authority as part of a historic dispensation, said the association's technical director, Captain Rob Torenvlied.
"Building this runway extension without proper run-off areas is akin to building the Transmission Gully motorway with cardboard crash barriers because the proper ones are too expensive. It just isn't conceivable."