NZ Airports Newsletter May 2024

From Billie’s desk

Kia ora koutou

I hope everyone is doing well.

Last week I met with Tangi Utikere, the Labour MP for Palmerston North and Opposition Spokesperson for Transport. Tangi is the former Deputy Mayor of Palmerston North and has also served as an RMA Commissioner. It’s always heartening to meet MPs who understand noise contours! We had a great discussion about the critical role of the airport network, the challenge of regional connectivity and rising airfares, and decarbonisation. Tangi is very keen to visit airports to learn more about our issues and priorities, so I’ll be reaching out to some of you on this soon.

I’m looking forward to seeing some airports and your RTO partners in Wellington for TRENZ, the major tourism trade show, this week. Auckland Airport will share its latest insights on the tourism recovery at its annual Tourism Summit on Wednesday. NZ Airports is working hard alongside other associations to keep the government system focused on tourism as a core part of the Coalition’s plan to grow exports. As well as being a natural driver of regional growth, tourism has the greatest capacity to increase GST receipts for the government and also adds scale into the supply chain for the expansion of airfreight.

A key challenge for our tourism recovery is getting more capacity on trans-Tasman routes. We’re monitoring the decisions being made about the proposed Virgin Australia-Air New Zealand codeshare arrangement, which has just been provisionally approved by the ACCC and now awaits a determination from the New Zealand Ministry of Transport. NZ Airports opposes the agreement as we see no identifiable benefit to New Zealand consumers and it risks dampening any motivation from Virgin Australia to expand capacity on its own.

New Security Working Group

One of the ways members can contribute to NZ Airports’ work is through our working groups. We have a range of ongoing working groups as well as groups we pull together for short term projects. Our ongoing working groups include Sustainability, Aviation Security, Safety Managers and Noise and Planning.

In light of the complexity of security issues facing airports, we’ve now decided to establish a Security Working Group. This group will bring members together to share information and capability building on issues including insider threat, unruly passengers and mental health, crime trends, police relationships and the Crowded Places strategy and protocols. We also hope it will provide a regular platform for airports to share findings from security exercises. CAA, Police National Headquarters and airline security leads will also be invited to join the group when appropriate.

Email me at billie.moore@nzairports.co.nz if you’d like to join or nominate someone from your team.

Finally, big thanks to the Hamilton, Rotorua, North Shore and Ardmore Airport teams who I’ve caught up with over the past few weeks. Looking forward to making my way around more members as the year goes on.

NZ Airports Advocacy

Airline Competition and Price Monitoring
CE Billie Moore continued our advocacy and media efforts to highlight the need for airline price monitoring and greater competition in the domestic air passenger market.

Regional Airport Summit
The NZ Airports Regional Airport Summit was held at BECA’s Auckland office on 5 April, with around 30 airport CEOs, senior managers and NZ Airport staff attending. The Hon Simeon Brown, Minister for Transport, attended for two hours and heard from airport CEOs about the barriers holding back airport development.

Aviation Council/CAA Aviation Industry Meetings
CE Billie Moore is working with the Provisional Aviation Council to develop its terms of reference and work plan for the next 12 months. She also attended the quarterly Aviation industry Meeting organised by the CAA to bring together stakeholders from across the sector. Billie is also a member of the AvSec Security Stewards Group.

Climate Change Commission and International Aviation Emissions.
CE Billie Moore is leading the airport sector’s response to the Climate Change Commission’s investigation into including international aviation and maritime emissions into New Zealand’s 2050 target.

Covid Royal Commission
NZ Airports responded to the Covid Lessons Learnt Royal Commission by lodging a submission that spelt out our view of how governments can best prepare for a future pandemic. Our submission covered government having a clearer picture of who are essential workers and when that criteria should shrink or expand. We also suggested that Ministries have a better understanding of the essential linkages, such as training and spare parts, between different sectors that enable critical infrastructure to continue operation.

Fast-Track Approvals Bill
NZ Airports lodged a submission on the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. We supported the Bill because it would give operators of nationally and regionally significant infrastructure a timelier and more straight-forward consenting process. We asked for amendments that would make it more useful for airports by making noise sensitive activities inside aircraft noise effect areas ineligible for consideration under the fast-track criteria. We requested a similar amendment for activities that could affect an airport’s OLS.

Airways’ Digital Towers and Unmanned Aircraft Integration
Policy Director Steve Riden, Garry Goodman and Simon Hollinger took part in a series of workshops organised by Airways to a) develop potential scenarios for Airways to introduce digital towers and b) to explore what would be required to integrate unmanned aircraft into the manned aircraft system.

NZ Airports Security Working Group
NZ Airports is establishing a new permanent working group for airport security issues. See the CE Report for the call for nominations. We note that some of the implications of the Queenstown IED incident is that airports should have clear protocols for decisions to evacuate the terminal, and also become more familiar with how best to manage incidents. The CAA is clear that it is the airport’s decision to evacuate. Security will also be a feature topic at the Hui.

Emergency Management
NZ Airports has been closely following the many official reports into the Emergency Management response to Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary floods. The Emergency Management Bill that we submitted on last year has been withdrawn and an entirely new Bill will be drafted, drawing more from the lessons from the Cyclone Gabrielle experience. Our submission to the first Bill noted its weaknesses and suggested further system improvements so the new Bill gives us an opportunity to end up with better legislation covering critical infrastructure entities. The various reports have different perspectives and different levels of accuracy, but they all generally support a bigger role for aviation in future Emergency management planning and response.

Small Airports Meeting
9th May, 10:30am – 12:00pm
Online

NZ Airports Board Meeting
June 4th, Auckland

NZ Airports Forum
27th June, 10:30am – 12:00pm
Online

AAA Retail & Commercial Forum
22-24 July 2024
The Retail and Commercial Forum will take place in Melbourne. All NZ Airports members can enjoy the same registration rates as Australian members for AAA events.

Small Airports Meeting
8th August, 10.30am -12:00pm
Online

NZ Airports Board Meeting
24th September, Wellington