Editorial: Airport has eye fixed on growth

There are times during the week when you would think Hawke's Bay Airport must be one of busiest small airports in the country.

Planes in and out, to Wellington and Auckland in particular, are full or near-full and the terminal is a crush of people.

Of course this is only at times as, equally, there are fallow periods in which you might swing a cat and not be in danger of hitting a waiting passenger.

That, of course, is the challenge for the operator, Hawke's Bay Airport Limited, and for the carrier, Air New Zealand. How do you make the entire shooting box as profitable as possible given demand for airline use is variable?

The airport company has made a good fist of things in the past year and has just reported income up by 4 per cent to $2.5 million, operating expenses down by 13 per cent and a 10 per cent increase in passenger numbers on the 2009/2010 financial year to 431,903.

You only need visit the airport at one of its many busy times to understand that efficient, affordable, air travel is becoming ever more important to the region.

And while we might say that "affordable" air travel is not always attainable under the current situation of a one-carrier monopoly, Air New Zealand and the airport company are most definitely efficient at getting people in and out of Hawke's Bay.

That is important to us, particularly from a business perspective. The region does a lot of trade with New Zealand's main centres, into Australia and, increasingly, Asia.

It is hard to see Hawke's Bay Airport doing anything other than increase in importance as a vital link to the world for an otherwise isolated region.

Talk continues behind the scenes to try and attract another carrier but there are never any guarantees in these things.

It is highly encouraging, however, that critical work has been completed this year on extending the runway to 1750 metres so it is long enough to take small jets, and on hiring a business development manager and rolling out plans for a business park.