Shareholders tackle Auckland airport
Attempts to force Auckland International Airport (AIA) to manage its own fuel supply and take further measures on climate change have failed.
The airport was hit by a jet fuel crisis last month when a digger hit the pipeline link to a Northland refinery. Numerous flights were cancelled across nine days.
Shareholder Peter Wakeman put three votes to the company’s annual meeting on Thursday, asking it to investigate ways fuel could be transported to the airport by ship and stored onsite, to find ways to further limit carbon dioxide emissions, and to lobby the Government for debt-free money to make climate change financially viable.
Chairman Sir Henry van der Heyden asked shareholders to vote against them, saying it was a company matter and was being addressed.
He said the airport had good storage on a global comparison, that oil companies and independent storage facilities were responsible for fuel supply, and added the airport had insurance to cover fuel interruptions, meaning the cost to the airport of the recent crisis was only a few hundred thousand dollars.
Independent on-site storage tanks combined with Wiri storage meant the airport had fuel contingency of 13 days’ normal operation, van der Heyden said.
On climate change, he and chief executive Adrian Littlewood said it had been under consideration since 2005, was on the company’s risk register, and was being managed ‘‘as best as possible’’.
Directors were also voted a 2 per cent pay rise in their annual fees. ‘‘This will be the easiest we’ve ever got away with this,’’ van der Heyden joked.
Challenged by a shareholder on staff pay, he said the board had approved an average 2.5 per cent pay increase across airport staff.
Littlewood, responding to a question on how Government plans to lift the living wage to $20 per hour by 2020 would affect airport finances, said no airport staff were on the minimum wage.
The new Government’s plans to build light rail from the Auckland CBD to the airport were also discussed, with Littlewood saying more details and costings were needed before serious comment could be made.
Littlewood rejected a shareholder request to reinstate airport signs advising travellers that tipping was not part of New Zealand culture, saying it wasn’t the airport’s job to regulate cultural conduct.