Queenstown Airport consulting on $350m expansion

• Published date: 29 May 2023
• Author: Brent Melville
• Publication title: Bay of Plenty Times

The latest draft 10-year masterplan, rolled out for initial consultation on Wednesday, has factored in a 15 per cent expansion of the terminal to 21,000sq m

That’s on the back of an expected 3.2 per cent compound growth in its passenger foot count, annually, from 2.4 million to 3.2m by 2032.

The country’s fourth-busiest airport expects the number of scheduled fixed-wing aircraft flights to take off, from 17,900 to 22,112 per year over the same period.

Non-scheduled fixed-wing and helicopter flights are expected to climb by almost a fifth, to 43,000 annually or about 117 per day.

The airport, run by Queenstown Airport Corp (QAC), expects to pay out its highest dividend this year to its 75.01 per cent owner, the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC), ahead of the $8.3m it paid out for 2019.

Auckland Airport will scoop up a quarter of that for its strategic stake in the Southern Lakes airport.

This follows paying out a $5.98m disbursement for the half year to December 2022 on the back of a post-pandemic rebound in winter tourism into the region. That helped propel revenues to $30m for the half year.

QAC expects dividends to the QLDC to ramp up to almost $15m by 2032, from revenues of about $118.3m.

To help it get there, QAC will build a new parallel taxiway, relocate its helicopter operations into a new northern aviation precinct, and its fixed-wing and corporate jet operators to a precinct south of the main terminal.

Alternative fuels Under the plan, QAC has made provision for a future fuel farm for hydrogen-powered planes as well as a dedicated area and charging facilities for electric aircraft.

While the QLDC has set itself a target of being net carbon zero by 2030, the airport is working to a...