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Christchurch Airport is spending tens of millions of dollars just to ‘explore a problem’ with no fixed outcome in sight. In my view, it is pitching a solution in search of a problem. We can all agree that New Zealand is facing infrastructure challenges, but a shortage of airports is not one of them.

Christchurch Airport proposes to build an international airport operating 24 hours a day on farmland it has bought in Tarras – 10 minutes from Wānaka Airport and over an hour from Queenstown Airport. Its justification is that there is an unmet need in the Southern Lakes region.

Christchurch Airport is a majority Christchurch City Council-owned asset and is a commercial organisation, not an altruistic one. Its motive is to make a profit, so why not be honest about that?

The people of this region, who have few means to influence the project, have made it clear they do not want a flood of extra visitors. They want sustainable tourism, not over-tourism. The Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago district councils have destination management plans to deliver exactly that.

Meanwhile, Christchurch City Council, like many councils across the country, has a series of infrastructure challenges of its own and is strapped for cash. Rates are rising and the sale of community assets is being openly discussed. Rather than spending money on its nebulous Tarras project, Christchurch Airport could support Christchurch ratepayers through greater dividends.

In trying to build a case for its Tarras project, Christchurch Airport has made many false and unsubstantiated claims about Queenstown Airport, including that we do not have room to expand. We have plenty of land and our capacity constraints are the result of community consultation, not physical constraints. We are in the process of finalising a Master Plan that will allow passenger numbers to increase by a third by 2032 and allocates space for further expansion in the decades beyond that. However, that will only happen with the support of our shareholders and the residents of our region. We are listening to them, unlike Christchurch Airport, which seems to be ignoring the widespread rejection of the proposed airport at Tarras.

If this project is foisted upon Tarras, it is the communities of Central Otago, Upper Clutha and Queenstown that will bear the brunt of the environmental costs and additional strain on infrastructure.

Another fallacy promoted by Christchurch Airport is that no one else is planning for the lower South Island. Dunedin Airport will complete its 2050 Master Plan by the end of next year. It serves a larger population base than all of Central Otago and Dunedin residents are very keen to see the return of international services. Queenstown Lakes District Council has said it will be consulting on the future of Wānaka Airport soon. Similarly, Invercargill Airport is undertaking long-term planning and will soon be consulting the public on its planned terminal expansion.

Christchurch Airport is strangely silent on the international airport it already owns, which is set on a substantial landholding and has surplus capacity. What it is planning 400km away in Tarras is not a small regional airfield; it is a large-scale airport capable of handling widebody long-haul jets from Asia and beyond, operating around the clock. Inevitably, passengers flying into Tarras would bypass Christchurch, which has successfully rebuilt a vibrant business community and tourism industry after the 2010-11 earthquakes.

Christchurch Airport’s briefing to Treasury states 70% of passengers to the proposed Tarras airport would come from overseas. By comparison, about 30% of Queenstown Airport’s passengers arrive on international flights from Australia.

The focus is ramping up visitor numbers dramatically, which is plainly at odds with community sentiment. The communities of the Southern Lakes do not want their home to become an alpine version of Venice.

This is a spectacular part of the world. We know people want to come here, but the idea that we need to submit to limitless growth and fuel turbo-charged tourism is outdated. The conversation has moved on.

Queenstown Airport plays a crucial role in enabling the economic and social wellbeing of this region. Our recent community consultation confirmed residents value its location and contribution. We are concentrating on creating a resilient airport to be proud of and enabling lower-emission aviation. That won’t change.

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A Tarras airport could divert international and domestic tourism and valuable revenue away from Christchurch, argues Ilan Noy, chair in the economics of disasters and climate change at Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington.

This week saw the 12th anniversary of the first major Canterbury earthquake on 4 September 2010. Since that event and the catastrophic aftershock of 22 February 2011, the Canterbury economy has proved quite resilient. So it’s a good time to ask where the region as a whole is heading.

This is especially important in light of plans by Christchurch Airport to build a new airport at Tarras in Central Otago.

This ambitious project has the potential to reshape Christchurch’s role in the economy of the South Island. And yet it remains unclear how much the Otago airport plans take the recovery of Christchurch into consideration.

Behind this lies the larger question of what happens to the Christchurch and Canterbury economies, now that almost all insurance claims have finally been resolved, houses have been rebuilt, and many (though not all) of the larger public infrastructure projects have been completed.

Helped by public funding worth many billions, the Canterbury economy grew rapidly in the years following the quakes. This isn’t unusual, as the flow of funds from insurance and government typically turbocharges the reconstruction. But this construction-based growth is not sustainable, and the real test is what happens next.

Will Christchurch emerge with an economy that was “built back better” to serve its residents, the South Island and Aotearoa New Zealand in general? Or will it slowly lose its economic vitality, now the large inflow of investment funding in reconstruction is petering out?

Crucially, where does the proposed new airport at Tarras sit within this broader perspective?

Why a new airport?

Christchurch International Airport Ltd (CIAL) is set up as a commercial enterprise, with 75% ownership by Christchurch City Holdings Ltd, the asset management arm of Christchurch City Council. The other 25% is owned by the Crown.

So it’s ultimately the ratepayers of Christchurch who must decide, through their elected representatives, whether it’s in their best interests to develop a new airport in Central Otago.

Does a Tarras airport make sense from a commercial, profit-seeking perspective? More importantly, will the airport development benefit the ratepayers of Christchurch, who ultimately own CIAL? To answer these questions, we first need to ask how the recovery from the Canterbury earthquake sequence is fairing in 2022.

One sector has dominated Christchurch’s economy since 2011 – construction. Not surprisingly, it doubled in size between 2011 and 2015 when reconstruction activity peaked.

Since then, however, it has been slowly declining (though it’s still about 20% larger than it was the year before the earthquakes). Now that a lot of the infrastructure in Christchurch is new, the city will need even less investment in construction than it did before the earthquakes.

What replaces construction?

The worry – one that has plagued many other urban recovery projects after large earthquakes – is that no other economic sector is taking construction’s place as the major source of employment and growth in the city.

The knowledge sectors (information technology, education, professional and scientific industries) have all seen a relative decline or have been stagnant in the past few years.

Tourism, accommodation and hospitality declined a lot after the earthquakes, and haven’t fully recovered. But they can be part of the solution to filling the emerging gap as construction activity unwinds.

It’s therefore important to understand how the plans at Tarras relate to these long-term challenges for the city. Will a new airport help fill that gap? Maybe, though the case has yet to be made convincingly.

One chief concern is that the other three airports in or near Central Otago (Queenstown, Dunedin and Invercargill) are not far away, are all centred around larger population centres and therefore cheaper to run, and are operating below capacity.

Other costs to consider

The future profits from a new airport, should they materialise, also need to be weighed against other costs – some of them borne much sooner. Climate change, in particular, is leading to a dramatic rethink of many lifestyle habits. And all the indications are that one of the first sectors this will test is long-distance tourism.

Barring a significant (and unlikely) increase in the number of long-distance tourists (coming maybe from the mega-cities of Asia), the project will only be profitable if it manages to divert traffic from the other airports in the South Island, and especially from Christchurch International Airport.

Christchurch Airport is the one airport in the South Island that already lets wide-body planes land, so it should be the one most concerned about competition from a Tarras airport with a similarly wide runway. Would CIAL be shooting itself in the foot by developing this new airport? If so, it would be the ratepayers of Christchurch who would be left standing unsteadily.

The most likely scenario is that a Tarras airport will not be a profitable asset for many years, due to the high cost of development and operation. It would also divert domestic and international tourists, and lucrative freight, away from Christchurch, thus hitting the city’s ratepayers twice (losing money as the owners of Tarras, and losing business as the owners of Christchurch Airport).

The airport is far from a certainty. As CIAL project director Michael Singleton said recently: “If the economic case doesn’t stack up, the airport won’t be built. On that basis, those who’re saying it’s nonsensical should be quite relaxed about our exploring it.”

But CIAL has already spent $45m directly to buy the Tarras land, and more on other related expenses. Given the double jeopardy the project entails for Christhchurch’s ratepayers, it’s an open question as to how relaxed they will remain, especially given the upcoming local elections.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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