Brian Mackie: International airport never a starter

Brian Mackie

It's official: there is no prospect of international flights from Hawke's Bay Airport.

What's surprising is that the joint owners took so long to concede what most ordinary folk have always known.

There never was.

This turkey cannot fly.

It follows that the $5.5 million runway extension in 2011 was a virtual white elephant from which only Air New Zealand benefits.

Its aircraft can use the extra length for tailwind landings and departures, reducing fuel costs. We, who funded the extension - and continue to pay so much for fares - will bitterly resent that.

The good news is that plans to further extend the runway from 1750m to 1940m by 2018 have been dropped.

Simon Nixon (Talking Point, HBT, July 4) persists in pushing unspecified "investment" in the wildly remote hope that some day, some international carrier may find Napier an attractive destination.

Dream on. That's unlikely to happen for at least 20 years - unless we strike oil - and no such airline exists at the moment.

Nixon says Palmerston North, Hamilton and Rotorua failed as international airports because they were so close to Auckland or Wellington.

What can he say about the recent withdrawal of international services at Dunedin? If their airport can falter while Queenstown International prospers, what chance have we?

He also raises another canard: splitting up Air New Zealand, a tiny operator in global terms.

But the airline is a conglomerate of several companies, including Air Nelson.

Fragmenting it would neither loosen its stranglehold on regional passengers nor stimulate competition. It would weaken Air New Zealand and make it less efficient.

Of course our problem involves a ruthless monopoly, but deep down this is really about regional stagnation. Dealing with both issues must involve the Government as:

controlling shareholder in Air New Zealand

50 per cent owner of HB Airport Ltd, and

the major influence in regional development.

Establishing a unitary local authority would at least resolve the airport stakeholder inequity surrounding Hastings District Council (24 per cent), Napier City (26 per cent) and Wairoa and Central Hawke's Bay councils, which have neither share nor say.

Ownership of the land is irrelevant, as is the division of returns to rate and taxpayers, because the entire operation is ultimately owned by the public.

The key issue is how the airport is used (or, in reality, under-used).

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule, in his Talking Point (HBT June 27), lauded our airport but was short on facts.

Here are some:

The airport's commercial traffic has gradually grown, mostly in line with national trend in supply and demand beyond the airport's control. However:

At Napier, there has been a severe and nationally unusual decline in General Aviation (GA) recreational and training activity, from 17,418 movements in 1996 to 9738 in 2013.

There was a peak in GA activity around 2008 when almost everyone, including pilots, imagined that credit was limitless (2007 - 9011 movements; 2008 - 13,185; 2009 - 9936).

This spike is also seen at virtually every other New Zealand airport in an Airways Corporation study covering the period 1996 to 2013.

General Aviation activity at Napier crashed around 2000 after the demise of the aero club (movements in 1999 - 13,063; in 2000 - 9651).

This sector of aviation and the aero club itself have never recovered at Napier, thanks to rising costs - Civil Aviation Authority and Air Traffic Control fees and landing charges are mostly to blame recently - and an airport management that turned a blind eye to small owners and operators, exiling many to friendlier runways.

Only a handful of active private owners remain based at Napier.

There is a small flight-training operation, but the main regional-training activity is at Bridge Pa, where the airfield is owned and well run by an aero club and there are no landing fees - unlike Napier, where users pay a relatively high landing fee plus an Air Traffic Control charge.

The market cannot support two major flight-training organisations in our region and the operation at Hastings is well established.

Ambitious plans for a business park have had limited success, with only one cornerstone occupier (ABB) which merely moved to the airport from a previous Napier location.

Now that there's no hope of Hawke's Bay Airport going "international", how else can we develop it?

We'll address this challenge in Part 2 of this story.

# Brian Mackie is a Napier-based writer and businessman and, since 1985, a private pilot who has flown extensively in Europe and New Zealand. He is co-principal of the General Aviation Advocacy group of New Zealand (www.caa.gen.nz)