Proposed Central Otago airport could host 3.6 million passengers and operate 24 hours a day
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
An international airport proposed for the Central Otago town of Tarras could serve 3.6 million passengers a year and operate round-the-clock.
Christchurch International Airport Ltd plans to build the airport on an 800ha site at the town of Tarras, about 30km north of Cromwell.
An airport spokesman said demand was growing so rapidly that if airport capacity was not increased there could be three people vying for every airline seat into the Queenstown region by 2050.
On Tuesday, the company revealed its preferred runway alignment and more details of its business case. Opponents say the new information changes nothing.
The business case included projections that demand for air connectivity to and from Central Otago, including Queenstown and Wānaka, was likely to grow to about 6.8 million passengers by 2050.
However, Queenstown Airport had committed to operating within existing noise boundaries for the next 10 years, which limited the number of arriving and departing passengers to about 3.2 million in a year.
A new airport in Central Otago could scale as required to meet the excess demand for the next 50-plus years, the report said.
The preferred runway alignment went through the Lindis Valley and over Lake Dunstan to be safer, provide more operational efficiency, and have less noise impact on the communities in Central Otago.
It would avoid the Wānaka and Lake Hāwea communities, which were closer to the alternative alignment option, but some flights would fly near Cromwell.
It could potentially operate 24 hours a day.
The runway could be between 2200m and 2600m long, giving greater flexibility for aircraft types he said.
A runway of 2600m would be suitable for domestic and international flights, including operations to parts of Asia and the South Pacific for wide body jets.
Restrictions at Queenstown Airport, 70km from the Tarras site, meant the airport would be spilling more passengers than it could serve by 2040, he said.
Chief strategy and stakeholder officer Michael Singleton said the work done so far had given the backers the confidence to continue with their plans.
Sustainable Tarras committee member Marilyn Duxson said the airport was not needed, nor wanted. The consequences would be intense locally but nationally significant, she said.
“It will encourage tourism, which the people of Wānaka and Queenstown have said they don’t want,” she said.
Duxson said a major factor in the runway choice was likely to minimise opposition - Wānaka and Hāwea would have featured in the other alignment option.
“Locally it will absolutely be the worst possible thing for those who live or have businesses in the town of Tarras. ”The noise will be intense for the school and shop and cafe and the little settlement around Tarras.”
Researchers against Tarras Airport representative Massey University Distinguished Professor Robert McLachlan said nothing in the plans dealt with the increased emissions more people and flights would bring.
The airport industry was one of the few that were unregulated, but there was work under way to change that, he said. “There needs to be a national strategy for the sector,” he said.
Christchurch Airport is holding three days of public drop-in sessions in Tarras, Cromwell and Wānaka, to discuss the latest information with local residents and businesses.
Singleton said he hoped to engage with the Queenstown community also.
“That’s a two-way thing. The decisions Queenstown takes with how they manage their own thing actually flows on to the regions around them.
“I think there is a need that during this we have to work together.”
Asked if he would be proactive about engaging with the Queenstown community he said that he had an open door and an open mind.
“We’d like to see that conversation occur,” he said.
He anticipated that over the next 20-30 years people would be distributed more evenly across the region, not skewed to Queenstown or Wānaka.
He hoped that during 2024 Christchurch Airport would have enough information to proceed to the approvals process. There was no definitive timeframe for constructing the airport.
In July 2020, it was revealed Christchurch International Airport had been buying up hundreds of hectares of farmland in Tarras, about 25 minutes drive from Cromwell, in Central Otago, with plans to build an international airport.
In May 2023, Christchurch Airport announced it had bought another 40 hectares of farmland in Tarras, which belonged to farmer Philip Parcell, who was approached in 2020 but did not want to sell.
Parcell was paid $5.5 million for his 40ha farmland – more than double the rate of surrounding farmers.
The earlier sales averaged $60,000 per hectare, while Parcell was paid $137,5000 per hectare.
Capacity
The new reports found Invercargill and Dunedin airports were not good alternatives due to the travel distance to Central Otago and Queenstown (two to three hours), and both were considered vulnerable to climate change inundation.
Travel demand for Central Otago would continue to grow even if air capacity was constrained.
Future air capacity constraints would likely make it harder for Central Otago to move people and products, and cause congestion and inefficient travel patterns – with consequential economic loss and higher carbon emissions.
“These problems can be avoided by taking a proactive approach to managing growth that ensures the right infrastructure is in place to support it.”
Weather
An analysis of fog/low cloud in winter indicated fog/low cloud typically occurred overnight, from midnight to 10am, and for these hours was present about 6-10% of the time.
On-site data had not been analysed for June-September.
“While decisions have not yet been made, technology is available to mitigate the impacts of any low visibility. This technology is significantly easier to install in a greenfield development.”
Traffic
Traffic reports found Central Otago and Queenstown Lake’s traffic volumes would increase regardless of whether the new regional airport was built and infrastructure needed to be upgraded.
A new regional airport in Central Otago would have minimal impact on traffic volumes in the Wakatipu Basin – the area under the greatest pressure at present, the reports showed.