NZ Airports submission on National Infrastructure Plan
NZ Airports has provided a submission to support the work of the Infrastructure Commission (Te Waihanga) in developing a National Infrastructure Plan.
We’ve urged Te Waihanga to ensure aviation – often left out of government plans due to our user-pays structure – is included in the plan, with a clear view of infrastructure challenges and opportunities across transport modes.
Among the key shifts we identified in our submission were:
- Aviation decarbonisation, which will have impacts on airport infrastructure as well as the enabling alternative fuel infrastructure required for low and zero-emissions aircraft.
- Advanced Air Mobility, which will present significant opporetunities for New Zealand both for urban mobility and regional connectivity, as a country with dispersed geographic centres.
- Regional fleet transition and the potential for airports to require infrastructure upgrades to handle different aircraft over time.
- The chronic funding issue for airports that have critical infrastructure requirements for basic connectivity, medical services and emergency response beyond their user base.
New Zealanders consider their airports the best performing infrastructure in the country (Ipsos). The government can draw insights from this on master planning, regional and stakeholder engagement, and user pays models.
We also strongly recommend Te Waihanga take the recommendations from the Air Navigation Systems review, which represents an industry consensus on the sector’s needs.