Tim Costley on saving Kāpiti Airport

The future of Kāpiti Airport is in the air as property developers are looking to buy the land - only if the airport is closed.

Otaki MP Tim Costley joins the show this morning to discuss what is going on with the deal, and how he is trying to stop it.

The airport is identified in civil defence plan as a key operational hub in a disaster. Costley says we must keep the airport open as it is a necessity for the whole Wellington region.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talks, b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
O techy MP. Tim Costly joins us. Now, Good morning, Tim.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Good morning Mack.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I saw your Instagram post on this story, and I
was right. I not often agree with you one hundred percent,
but I agree with you one hundred and ten percent
on this is a stupid idea, isn't it. Trying to
convert it?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, I mean I'm shopping down agressment all the time,
but yeah, look we need that airport, right and I
think everyone that lives in the live part of the
North Island can see the fragility of Wellington when the
big one hits. In fact, and now select many NIMA,
the National NUNCI, you know civil Defense organization, showed us
the modeling for when the big one hits and it

(00:53):
is catastrophic for Wellington. You know the airport. Wellington Airport
could be underwater. It'll certainly be out of action like
it was at Christchurch after that earthquake for a period
of time. And Kapiti Airport is the closest one that
we will have, the closer we can get that support.
It's about getting injured and vulnerable people out. It's about
getting es central supplies in.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
We just need it in an emergency. You are a pilot,
So in an emergency, what sized planes could land on
Capiti Airport with a little bit of work.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well today, if you had to, you could put a Hercules,
the big military cargo plane in there, and you could
put an Air New Zealand plane, not a jet, but
you could put like the Q three hundred, the one
that would fly you from Wellington to tode On in
as in New Zeale used to do, and as their
chatams do today and sounds the air fly passenger planes in.
But really, in that immency, if you needed to get

(01:48):
a Hercules in there, you could. And people are saying,
well you could just use helicopters and fly them out
of a school sports field. It's kind of true, but
it's never actually that simple. You need to set up
refueling points and would that would take exenficant amount of
space and it's a big operation, and actually having an
airport that will support both foxwing and helicopters because you've

(02:09):
got to move stuff from the flexwing into the helicopter
to then shuttle it into Wellington itself. So the shorter
distance you do in helicopters because they're nowhere near as
efficient as a big aircraft to better.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
So how sort of are we talking like to make
bring it back up to the standard at once was
Are we talking tens of millions? Are we talking hundreds
of millions?

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Well, I'm not advocating for any extra money today. I'm
just saying we need to keep it open because the
information I have says there is this new property group
that want to buy it on the condition that it
gets shut and once that happens, it's gone forever. So
my first thing is let's keep it open and it
can operate as it is today. At some point if
you wanted to replace the runway and resell the runway,

(02:53):
that's probably the last figure I saw was four million.
But it doesn't need that today. It is suitable today
to be used an immensely life flight based out of there.
When Wellington Airport is shut, which is actually quite a lot.
People don't realize that often there's maintenance, so night and
life Flight will park up in Cupcy and when the
weather is fare, when it's foggy, when it's too turbulent,
when it's not suitable to fly a patient in in

(03:14):
that kind of weather, they can use cups the airport.
So it's actually, you know, there are a number of
reasons to protect our community that we need to keep
that airport open.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Is it a possibility that a developer that would buy
it so they keep it as an airport.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yes, I have met with one who wants to do that.
They own a number of other airports around the world,
and that was their original plan. Right if you look
at the site on the side of it as a
new World and a Miter ten and some other shops,
and most airports around the world get most of their
funding by the commercial operations that's around the airport, that

(03:49):
not the physical runway itself. The same is true here
and there Israel for more development, and I support more
development on the airport site. I think it could be
a fantastic site. It could have a hotel, it can
have some more shops. That's great, as long as we
protect the runway and the operational area that the tarmac
or the atron that you might call it, as long
as we keep that open. So there's room for both.

(04:11):
But one of the short sighted decisions that the current
owners made is they managed to do a deal which
I didn't support at the time, to cut off that
really profitable bit of land with might attend a new
world and sell that off to someone separately. It's kind
of like if you imagine you sold off your house
but just kept the driveway and the garage and then

(04:32):
complained you cann't rent the driveway and the garage out
for enough and it's not profitable. Well, it's because you
just sold off the house. And it's kind of the
same here. They're selling off all the good baits and
then complaining this last but left is not profitable, so
they need to turn it into housing.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
You like, there's some textas has come in and said
spend the Mount Victoria money on developing Capity Airport Cupansy Airport.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Should I say it right, Well, I understand why people
would say that, but look, we don't need to spend
money today. We just need to keep Cupsy Airport opening.
In fact, I have been to the owners and said,
I'll save you almost a million dollars a year. I'll
make money for you because the control tower that's there
isn't needed, and I've met with Airways and CIA about

(05:13):
a pathway to removing that service, because it costs about
thirty five dollars extra on your ticket every time you
fly out of copy airport just to pay for that
control tower, and so we should get rid of that.
It's not busy enough to need a control tower. I've
flown into far busier airports without one. So actually this
is potentially a cheaper option to keep it open. That's

(05:35):
what I'm advocating for now.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Your mayor is not somebody that's going to take a
line down pretty you know, she's pretty staunched, doesn't she.
She doesn't want a bar of this coalition things. She
doesn't want a bar of anything. You know, she's got
it all under control. Will she allow this to happen?

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, I would love to see her and counselors come
out and say that they support retaining the airport. That
would just be a great sign of solidarity so that
any potential buyer knows that they've got a fight on
their hands and getting his own change will be difficult. Yes,
it's privately owned, but it's publicly zoned and that's where
we have our control. I've only had one comment so

(06:12):
far from a counselor, Liz Coe, who is against keeping
the airport. She wants to get rid of it, it seems,
and I don't understand why. But last time this popped
up sort of six years ago when they first the
current owners first port the airport and had a plan
to shut up within two weeks and we fought tooth
and nail. The mayor at the time was a different mayor.
He's gone now, but he came out and was very

(06:34):
clear that he would support keeping it. And I'd love
to see more counselors and the mayor come out and
say exactly that.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Good luck with it. Tim, appreciate you, appreciate you coming
on the show. And yes, I think it's a great
initiative of yours as the local O techy MP to
stand up for something that I think is very important
to the region.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
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