CEO: change is in the

Auckland Airport coping with growing services

Auckland Airport warns passengers will have to get used to more busing from planes to terminals as the number of new services soars. A shareholder at the company’s annual meeting yesterday said using buses to get passengers to the terminal was “Mickey Mouse” and “Third World” for tourists.

“The airport is there to service passengers not to have a multi-million dollar terminal with flash shops inside,” he said.

However, the company’s chief executive Adrian Littlewood said the percentage of passengers put on buses was low by international standards. Overseas airports used buses for up to half their passengers, while at Auckland they were used in about 5 per cent of the cases.

Previously this has been around 2 per cent.

Passengers were being bused to Jetstar’s regional terminal and at the international terminal it was a byproduct of the phenomenal growth that has come on in the past year, Littlewood said.

During the past financial year total passenger numbers were up 9 per cent to 17.3 million. Eight new airlines announced services during the year and since June 30 two more had said they were coming here.

“Infrastructure takes a lot longer to turn up than the planes that are arriving here,” Littlewood said.

The airport is in the midst of a big capital spending programme, which includes improving the departure and security screening areas and $30m to $40m on remote stands so planes can be moved to them to free up gates.

Littlewood warned this summer would be extremely busy on some days and there were a number of initiatives underway to help passengers through the airport.

Remote check-in was now available at park-and-ride areas and bigger monitors would be installed so passengers wouldn’t crowd in certain areas.

The issue was also raised that many arriving passengers were upset at poor Wi-Fi at the airport. There is free access for just 30 minutes.

Capital spending for the 2017 financial year is expected to be the highest in a decade at between $330m and $370m.

The airport’s chairman Sir Henry van der Hayden said it remained on course for an underlying profit of between $230m and $240m, up from $212m in the past year.