Airways extends its air traffic management review by two weeks

Friday, 24 April 2020

The fate of Invercargill Airport's control tower service will wait another two weeks as Airways has extended its consultation period.

On April 9, Airways announced a proposal to potentially cut several regional airports control tower services at  Hawke's Bay, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Invercargill airports.

The airfield flight information service provided at Kapiti Coast Airport and Milford Sound Piopiotahi Aerodrome were also being considered for removal.

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The timeframe has now been pushed out to May 13 to allow people to give more feedback.

On Thursday, the Southland mayoral forum comprised of Gary Tong, Tim Shadbolt and Tracy Hicks along with Great South chief executive Graham Budd and Invercargill Airport general manager Nigel Finnerty met with the transport minister to raise their concerns about Airway's proposal.

Invercargill Airport general manager Nigel Finnerty said they were working hard with Airways to make sure no short-term decisions were made that would comprise safety and halt the ability for aircraft to come back to the airport in the future.

The airport needed to understand the implications of the changes from a loss of its control tower before any decision could be made, Finnerty said.

Invercargill Airport were working on an aeronautical study on the future of air traffic management to respond the Airways proposal, he said.

Another concern raised was the future of its virtual control tower project which had been partially been built before the proposal, he said.

Gore District Council mayor Tracy Hicks said there were concerns that the removal of a control tower services would lead to a reduction in the number of flights it could safely provide.

'There had been a huge effort in establishing a jet service in Invercargill and we don't want to see any limitation on that or any other service.'

Invercargill City Council mayor Tim Shadbolt said whilst understanding the whole world was going through unprecedented times, the proposal happened so quickly, that they had no time to react to it.

Great South chief executive Graham Budd said any hindrance to Southland restarting its economy and continuing its long term ambitions of population growth was a major concern.

Great South had played a role in implementing the Auckland to Invercargill flights and hoped to get that service up and running as soon as possible, he said.

Air freight was important to some of business to export high value perishable items and also signalled future opportunities for potential investors in the region.

Southland District Council mayor Gary Tong said they could not restart Southland without an air hub which was Invercargill airport.

There were a lot of perishables produce that relied on air freight such as oysters, crayfish and other items such as tulips that needed to get to market efficiently, Tong said.

An Airways spokeswoman said any changes would mean aircraft would still be able to fly safely to Invercargill and this included freight, medical flights and future passenger services.

The dramatic reduction in airline flights due to Covid-19 made delivering its services at the seven regional aerodromes unviable as there were so few flights from which Airways could recover fees, she said.

Transport minister Phil Twyford said while Airways was not his responsibility as a state-owned enterprise, as transport minister he wanted to make sure regions such as Southland were well served by air services.