Kāpiti Coast Airport rolling closures set to finish by Friday

Kāpiti Coast Airport. Photo / Rosalie Willis

Almost two months after rolling closures at the Kāpiti Coast Airport were announced, the end of the closures are in sight for airport users.

But that is only after the likes of Kāpiti Aero Club have lost upwards of 20 per cent of their revenue over the period of closures.

"We expect our flight information service [FIS] to be back to normal hours of operation by Friday this week," Airways spokeswoman Emma Lee said.

"This will allow the service to operate as normal."

The closures were due to two FIS officers resigning, leaving a gap in the roster which normally consists of four FIS officers.

Staff and members of the Kāpiti Aero Club. Photo / Rosalie Willis

"The FIS officers have been training at the Kāpiti Coast Airport.

"As the airspace environments at airports are different, all FIS officers and air traffic controllers need individual validations [qualifications] to work at each location.

"During the period where we were experiencing a staffing shortage, shifts at the tower were arranged to ensure we were able to accommodate all scheduled flights into and out of Kāpiti Coast Airport and minimise the impact on all customers."

This meant the closures were largely based around commercial provider Air Chathams and its scheduled flights.

However, the closures have had a big impact on the Kāpiti Aero Club's summer operations.

"We adapted, we did a lot of flying during the times when the airport was open and the weather was good but the closures were often over a significant part of the day.

"We actually had a good January but we just wonder how spectacularly we would have done if there were no closures."

Talking to Kāpiti News from Ashburton, Kāpiti Aero Club president Tony Quayle explained how his day showed the ways in which the club has had to adapt.

To head to Ashburton, Tony had to leave by 10.15am in order to be gone before the closure.

If he hadn't done so he wouldn't have been able to leave until 3.15pm, when the airport reopens.

"One of the mitigating actions we took was some days sending an aircraft and an instructor to Wellington courtesy of the Wellington Aero Club, and we were able to operate with some of our students from there.

"This helped mitigate the impact during periods when the airport was closed.

"It was very good of the Wellington Aero Club to accommodate us like that, we all worked together."

It was difficult to tell exactly how big an impact the closures had, Tony said: "It's hard to quantify but we are about 20-30 per cent down in hours and revenue on what we could have been, particularly over January.

"Between working around the closures at Paraparaumu and sometimes having an instructor in Wellington, we were able to ensure everyone kept up with their training, just with some disruption.

"I would say the 20-30 per cent reduction in our revenue for January is a significant impact on our club.

"We just don't know what it would have been like with full hours available.

"The closures also had a big impact on transiting pilots who use Kāpiti Coast Airport for stopping and refuelling.

"We coped, we survived, but we expect we would have flown a lot more."