New Plymouth’s airport on road to recovery

Things are looking up for New Plymouth’s airport, with Air New Zealand passenger numbers possibly returning to 90 per cent of pre-Covid levels in the New Year.

Airport company Papa Rererangi i Puketapu chief executive Wayne Wootton and board chair Philip CoryWright presented their quarterly report to New Plymouth District Council, which owns the business.

‘‘October’s numbers were 37 per cent above forecast,’’ Wootton told yesterday’s Council-Controlled Organisations Committee meeting. By the end of the year, passenger numbers were forecast to reach 227,000 in revised figures taking the Covid pandemic into account, but may fly higher, Wootton said.

‘‘I think we could potentially be over the 300,000 mark, assuming there’s no more lockdowns.

‘‘We’re ticking along steadily but not anywhere near where we were last year.’’

Wootton said Air New Zealand passenger numbers in January and February were looking like 80-90 per cent of where they were a year ago. But last year Air NZ was about 90 per cent of total passengers with Jetstar no longer flying into New Plymouth.

Cory-Wright said it would still be probably three years before a dividend was paid to the council on the multimillion dollar loan given to the airport, as while they were cash-flow positive they were not yet profitable. ‘‘There’s still quite a big gap between where we would’ve been pre-Covid and where we are today.’’