Soaring numbers a lift for airport

Hannah Martin discovers getting you where you want to go is a numbers game.

All your bags are packed, you’re ready to go, your passport is in hand and the taxi is booked.

If you are heading to Auckland Airport, you will be just one of the 37,500 people who will visit each day, this silly season.

It’s the busiest time of the year at the biggest of the country’s seven international hubs.

On top of the tens of thousands of travellers, some 65,000 vehicles will visit the airport in a day and while there many will fight for one of the 6500 carparks.

If you happen to be catching a connecting flight from elsewhere in the country, you’ll be on one of around 320 domestic flights to touch down daily.

More than 10 million people poured through the international terminal to October, and Auckland Airport acting general manager of aeronautical operations Anil Varma reckons it is set to get busier still.

‘‘Known as the summer peak, this year we are expecting around 162 international flights every day, with international passenger numbers expected to be approximately 6 per cent higher than last summer.’’

The international airport might feel sprawling, but at 25,419sqm it’s only a third of the size of the country’s biggest shopping centre, Auckland’s Sylvia Park.

You check in – having loaded your luggage onto one of the 4000 trolleys – at one of the 45 kiosks and join a baggage drop queue, dozens deep.

While you’re dreaming of the faraway land you’re off to, spare a thought for those whose job it is to get you there.

On a single day there are as many staff members walking the airport’s corridors as fulltime students at Victoria University.

Around 22,000 people are employed across 800 businesses at the airport – whether that’s examining bags, cleaning toilets, brewing flat-whites, or sifting through parcels.

This time of year it’s ‘‘manic’’ for each of them, chief customs officer Craig Rogers said.

Crowds clog customs as people are stopped, scanned and searched at the best of times – but the pressure is on over the holiday season.

In a 24-hour period there are up to 120 customs officers each working 9- to 10-hour shifts and 20 additional officers have been brought on to share the holiday load.

Rogers, who has been working in customs for 17 years, said the number of passengers through customs has tripled in his time.

‘‘We always know the period is coming, so we best to cope.’’

On average, 33 subject to a full or search each day.

The airports’ 540 frontline biosecurity staff clear each traveller passing through security.

They are the only ones sniffing out risks – around 60 beagles and harrier hounds patrol the terminal daily, sniffing out drugs, cash, plant and animal products, pests or explosives.

With more than 100 stores and 16,000sqm of retail space over both terminals – around the size of 60 tennis courts – you’re bound to find something that takes your fancy.

Travelling can make you hungry, holiday do our

passengers are partial baggage

and some 1500 people head to McDonald’s near the departure gate each day. The most popular order: a classic Big Mac.

They’re calling your flight – one of 120 flying internationally – to board.

Hand over your departure card

as you step onboard, one of nearly 20,000 filled out that day.

You stuff your carry on bag into the too-small compartment overhead and breathe a sigh of relief.

The plane begins to taxi and crews carry out their safety briefing while you flick through the wellthumbed

copy of Kia Ora magazine and peruse movie options.

Both international and domestic flights feed into 1911 metres of runway. As your flight rolls along the tarmac, you gaze out the window back toward the terminal, shrinking as if in a rearview mirror.

Across both terminals there are around 450 aircraft movements a day – that’s a total of 164,665 every year.

Your hard work is over – the planning, packing, stressing – your holiday can begin.

Back at the airport cars pull up, people kiss their loved ones goodbye, crowds shuffle through to baggage drop and get ready to depart.

The lights hum, the aircon rattles, the doors stay open, the job is never done.

Auckland Airport never

We always know the holiday period is coming, so we do our best to cope.

sleeps.