John MacDonald: Wake-up call for Tarras airport pipedream

Christchurch Airport’s nose is going to be out of joint today. Because the boss at Queenstown Airport, Glen Sowry, has come out firing over Christchurch’s plan to build a new airport at Tarras, in Central Otago.

He’s saying there is no need at all for another airport in the South Island and he’s put out a statement saying “it’s time to set the record straight”. Which is a statement of intent if ever I saw one.

Because he goes on to say that Christchurch Airport is spending tens of millions of dollars pushing a solution to a problem that just does not exist, and he accuses Christchurch of making what he says are “many false and unsubstantiated claims about Queenstown Airport”.

Now what he’s getting at there, is the claim that Christchurch Airport has made all along that Queenstown Airport is running out of space and so Christchurch is coming to the rescue with this plan to build a new airport at Tarras.

Which is an idea that I think is absolutely nutbar.

Here we are in Christchurch, with a council that says we’re in a climate emergency, but it seems quite happy for its airport company - which it has a 75 percent stake in - to spend gazillions building a new airport 400 kilometres away.

An airport that the people living there don’t want. An airport that the local tourism sector there doesn’t want because the area just can’t sustain massive increases in visitor numbers. And now - today - an airport that we’re being told just isn’t needed.

Now I’m fully aware that what we’re seeing today from Queenstown Airport is just as much about commerce as anything else. Because Queenstown Airport is a business, just like Christchurch Airport is a business. And, of course, Queenstown Airport doesn’t want Christchurch Airport moving-in on its patch.

Nevertheless, I’m with Glen Sowry. Christchurch Airport needs to butt out. Because you might have seen the stuff in the news recently showing what this airport in Tarras would actually look like.

I’d describe it as Westfield Mall dumped on a lifestyle block. It would be appalling.

And Glen Sowry makes it sound even worse in his statement today, when he says what Christchurch wants to do in Tarras is build a large-scale airport capable of handling widebody long-haul jets from Asia and beyond, operating night and day.

And that it would be the local community dealing with, not only the visual and noise pollution, but also the environmental costs and additional strain on infrastructure.

Christchurch Airport, of course, is hitting back. It’s just put out a statement saying “Mr Sowry's claims there's no issue with airport capacity in Central Otago just don’t add up“.

This is Christchurch Airport’s Chief Strategy and Stakeholder Officer Michael Singleton saying this.

He says Queenstown Airport’s own numbers show a significant lack of capacity beyond 2032 which, he says, will only get worse. He says if demand isn’t met, it won’t go away. Instead passengers will fly to other airports and then drive to Central Otago.

Christchurch Airport is saying that its modelling shows that people could be driving an extra 500,000 kilometres on South Island highways every day by 2050 if nothing’s done.

But what Christchurch Airport doesn’t get, is that it’s this type of bombastic nonsense that is really brassing people off in central Otago. It’s brassing-off the people living in Tarras. It’s brassing-off the tourism operators down there. And, naturally, it’s brassing-off its airport competitors - particularly Queenstown Airport.

Which, when you add all those things up, tells you - and should tell Christchurch Airport - that it has absolutely no social licence to bowl into central Otago and plant an airport there.

Because what social licence is, is public acceptance of a commercial activity. And, from what I can see, there is next-to-no public acceptance of what Christchurch Airport is proposing