Wānaka Airport - a call for past lessons to be learned.

Reader Commentary.

Nick Page is a retired Civil Engineer who built a house in Wanaka 10 years ago after holidaying there annually for more than 20 years. Most of his career was spent in the contracting industry, where he spent the last 20 years as an owner and director of a contracting company specialising in commercial building projects. Nick is also a member of local advocacy group Protect Wānaka.

Wānaka Airport is a wonderful community asset – I think this may be one thing ǪLDC and the Upper Clutha community can agree on.

However, over the last 20 years Wānaka Airport - its governance, management, finances and operations - has provided us with a scarily familiar case study, which clearly illustrates and highlights the underlying failures that have beset ǪLDC across so much of its operations.

Failures of transparency, governance, community consultation and financial management. The seeming determination from the hierarchy of ǪLDC that “they” know best and will impose their will on the community regardless of the communities’ wishes. No wonder trust in our council is at historic lows!

Almost 20 years ago, in 2008, a Master Plan was prepared for Wānaka Airport. In that plan the following statement was made:

 "In 1998 airport management passed from the Ǫueenstown Airport Corporation (ǪAC) to a Wānaka based Management Committee of ǪLDC with a locally based Airport Manager. We believe that the airport has operated satisfactorily with this “committee based” management structure for the last 10 years. The airport has achieved an operating surplus each year (of about 30 to 40% of revenue), that has been used to fund capital improvements. "

Now one might think after reading that statement that retaining the status quo was then the blindingly obvious option for Wānaka Airport’s future operation. But no, that did not suit some and just a few short paragraphs later the governance section of the report concluded:

“ǪLDC is reviewing various future governance options for Wānaka Airport and has determined that a new structure should be in place by 31st March 2008.”

And that is what happened. ǪLDC and ǪAC took over the airport from the community. So how has that worked out? Not well!

Our once successful community run airport has been transformed into what ǪLDC would have us believe is a loss-making disaster which can only be revived by radical change, by council incurring yet more debt to allow it to expand the airport to accommodate more commercial flights and pave the way for future jet operations and large-scale growth.

ǪLDC has repeatedly refused to make comprehensive annual financial information for the airport publicly available. I know this because I and others have asked for it, many times. This is more than a little concerning since it is an important piece of public infrastructure which attracts a high level of public interest and which, from the sparse information that is available, would appear to have been seriously mismanaged by council.

Over the last 20 years that sparse publicly available information shows:

• The declared cost of operating the airport, costs which are now dominated by various fees charged by ǪAC and ǪLDC, has ballooned by more than 500%, while aircraft movements have barely doubled, taking the airport from an annual profit as recently as 2018 to what ǪLDC now presents as significant and increasing annual losses.
• ǪLDC has had its controversial 100 year lease to ǪAC overturned in the High Court.
• After significant investment to support a regional service, the airport lost its Air NZ services, with the only commercial service now being provided by Sounds Air, using 12 seat turboprop aircraft.
• ǪLDC has allowed its CCTO, ǪAC, to purchase almost all the land surrounding the airport, with a clear, if unstated, agenda to see massive airport growth provide ǪAC, and thus its 75% shareholder ǪLDC, with windfall future property development profits.
• ǪLDC has facilitated ǪAC earning significant (but not revealed) profits from NASA balloon operations, apparently without now sharing these benefits with the airport.

• ǪLDC has spent very large amounts on consultants for failed consultations and for airport expansion planning.
• ǪLDC created the Wānaka Airport Liaison Committee (WALC) to fulfil a 2008 Master Plan Commissioners recommendation that the Upper Clutha community be given a say in future planning for their local airport. However, to quote a member of the committee, “there is almost no value in the committee apart from ticking a box that ǪLDC’s requirements for it to exist have been met”.

So, what appears to be driving ǪLDC’s ongoing 20+ year efforts to impose a jet airport on Wānaka? Council’s frequently quoted narrative has been that projected population growth in the region, and specifically in the Upper Clutha, necessitates the development of Wānaka Airport as a key part of a “dual airport” scenario with Ǫueenstown Airport.

No one expects growth of the Upper Clutha to stop. It is after all such an amazing place to live that it’s no wonder that it is growing. However, to ensure that growth is not unmanageably and disastrously accelerated (which a jet airport would undoubtedly do) and that the very quality of life that people come for is not unnecessarily compromised, we need to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. Ǫueenstown’s mayors have often said that you can’t stop growth. Maybe so, but council and the community taking decisions now which avoid accelerating it, leaving Wānaka Airport as a thriving general aviation airport hub and rejecting any plan to facilitate its expansion for future jet traffic, would be a great start.

 Anyway, if as council predict, Wānaka is to be the center of population growth for ǪLDC in the future we should at least take one lesson from Ǫueenstown. One of the greatest mistakes when developing Ǫueenstown was placing its airport in the growth path of its urban expansion, resulting in a raft of issues that continue to plague Ǫueenstown. Wānaka Airport is similarly sited in a logical path for the future expansion of Wānaka and Luggate. If this is not council contemplating repeating historic mistakes, I don’t know what is.

If a 2025 Master Plan is to successfully achieve anything positive it is critical that all parties’ goals and agendas are truly transparent and available for open community debate during the planning process. We simply must have full transparency on all historic finances and operational issues to see why the situation of the airport has allegedly collapsed so dramatically.

Only if a truly transparent consultation process takes place can the community have a proper, informed say on the future direction of its airport. It may be an oft quoted phrase, but the airport’s current Master Planning process does put us at a crossroad. The community has this opportunity to decide to reject unconstrained growth and move towards a more sustainable future by opting for the airport to be a community led general aviation airport, rejecting once and for all the council’s dual jet airport concept with its associated tide of mass tourism.

The worst-case scenario is that the 2025 master planning process proceeds and repeats the mistakes of the past: insufficient transparency and a preset agenda from ǪLDC rendering the consultation effectively null and void. That would seemingly inevitably lead to ǪLDC’s continuing mismanagement of the airport, rapid expansion for jet aircraft and consequent unmanageable growth being prioritised ahead of the aspirations of the local communities.