Airport upgrade logical
Internationalising Whenuapai a win for city and travellers, writes Graeme Lay
A Friday afternoon at Auckland International Airport, the day the schools break up for the holidays. Outside there is cold rain, hard driven by a southerly wind. A weather interruption to flights the previous day means that the crowds are denser than usual as the airlines struggle to clear the backlog. The check-in area is a rolling maul. Shuffling along the rope lines with their heaped trolleys are men, women and children. Other passengers struggle to operate the kiosks, most of which advise them to try another one.
The same Friday afternoon, Queensland’s Sunshine Coast Airport, 109km northeast of Brisbane. The Air New Zealand Airbus A320 comes to a halt outside a small terminal. There is only one other aircraft parked on the runway, a Virgin Australia plane. The sky is radiant blue, the winter temperature 23C.
The Air New Zealand passengers disembark, descend steps and walk across to the terminal. We present our passports to the brown-uniformed Australian Border Force. There are no crowds, no heavy security. One of the border enforcers takes my arrival card, then waves me through to the baggage claim area. “No worries mate,” he says. “Have a great stay on the Sunshine Coast.”
And I’m wondering, why can’t all international arrivals be like this?
Most of those passing through Sunshine Coast Airport are heading for the beach resorts a short drive away at Coolum, Mooloolaba, Alexandra Headland or Noosa. Most of the Australian arrivals have come from Melbourne and Adelaide, where the winters are as bleak as Auckland’s.
But some have also come from New Zealand, as the Sunshine Coast Airport is now international and this lovely coast is one of Kiwi travellers’ favourite holiday destinations. The fact they can now fly directly to the Sunshine Coast from New Zealand means that this region is only three hours 20 minutes from Auckland Airport. After the plane takes off, that is.
It was in 2012 that the Sunshine Coast tourist authorities decided that the airport near Maroochydore could be upgraded to take international flights, a procedure that involved setting up customs, immigration, quarantine and security facilities.
Figures show that 66,000 New Zealanders visited the Sunshine Coast through Maroochydore in the year ending March 2017, a 5.5 per cent increase on the previous year. In July flights between Auckland and Maroochydore were increased to four times a week.
Sunshine Coast Airport general manager Peter Pallot states that the Air New Zealand flights have “broadened travel horizons for New Zealand residents and Sunshine Coast locals alike”, explaining that “the flights provide easy access for our New Zealand passengers, allowing them to begin their Sunshine Coast escape the moment they step off the plane”. The service also provides, “hassle-free international travel for our residents, giving them the opportunity to explore all that New Zealand has to offer”.
So, a short time after landing, we’re in a rental car heading north along the Sunshine Coast. And I’m thinking, why doesn’t Auckland do something similar, and develop Whenuapai into an international airport? After all, the runway has been in place for decades. Converting Whenuapai to an international facility would be a boon for North Shore residents, who at present have to negotiate the interminable rats’ maze of orange cones on the outskirts of Auckland International Airport, then struggle through congested check-in procedures. This is stressful and time-consuming. And when emerging from Auckland Airport after coming back from overseas, the urge to take another holiday sets in immediately.
Whenuapai is only a 20-minute drive away for most of the North Shore’s 275,000 people. From there, Australia and other popular South Pacific holiday destinations are only about three hours’ flight time away. Greenhithe residents would doubtless object to the noise factor, but modern jets are quieter than the protracted, maddening whump-whump-whump of RNZAF helicopters. There would be collateral benefits, too. Service industries would spring up around an international terminal at Whenuapai, as they have proliferated at Mangere.
For 20 years Whenuapai was the gateway to New Zealand for civilian air travellers, before it was replaced by the airport at Mangere in 1965. Can’t we now turn the clock back to the mid-1960s and redevelop Whenuapai as an international airport, simultaneously moving the aviation clock forward?
The Sunshine Coast’s excellent local airport provides a template for what Aucklanders could benefit from. Its establishment and growth represents decentralisation at its most rational.