Top Auckland Airport executive heading for exit

Auckland Airport’s chief financial officer Phil Neutze has resigned after 13 years with the company.

Neutze joined the airport company in early

2010 as head of business intelligence before being appointed chief financial officer (CFO) in December 2015. He will remain in his role until December 22 before taking on a new role in March as group CFO at Datacom. Auckland Airport's head of strategy, planning and performance Stewart Reynolds will step in as acting chief financial officer until a replacement is appointed.

Chief executive Carrie Hurihanganui said the airport was a very different place from what it was when Neutze joined. “We are now under way with the biggest infrastructure programme since the airport was built and Phil has been pivotal in getting to this point,” Hurihanganui said.

The NZX50 company operates the Auckland and Queenstown airports. Preliminary data for September shows that 1,483,839 passengers used Auckland Airport, an increase of

26 per cent from September 2022 and 90 per cent of the September 2018 pre-Covid equivalent. International passengers, excluding transit passengers, increased by 58 per cent compared with September last year and were

91 per cent of the September 2018 international passenger numbers. Domestic passengers last month increased by 4 per cent compared with the same month last year, to 91 per cent of the September 2018 number.

Queenstown airport had 203,724 passengers in September, a 4 per cent increase from September 2022. International passengers last month increased 28 per cent from September

2022, while domestic passengers dropped 7 per cent from the same month last year.