KEY POINTS:
Charities, sporting bodies and budding sporting stars have been hit hard by Auckland International Airport's decision to drop one of its two duty-free outlets.
Regency Duty Free, which lost the bid for the new airport contract, said it would immediately stop its support for community and sporting projects, which have received $1.5 million from the company in recent years.
The company, which does about 70 per cent of its business through the airport, will continue to operate five airport stores until the end of the current agreement in July 2009.
In recent years the company has poured money into a variety of charities including KidsCan, Kidz First, the hearing dogs programme, and the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation.
Organisations such as the Auckland Philharmonia, the Coast Guard and Rotary International have also benefited, as have sporting bodies including Auckland Rugby, the Warriors, Emirates Team New Zealand, the NZ Breakers and the Millennium Institute of Sport and Health.
Included in the company contributions was about $750,000 to around 50 or 60 rising sporting stars including Commonwealth Games shot put gold medallist Valerie Vili, two of New Zealand's highest-ranked tennis players, Marina Erakovic and Sacha Jones, swimmers Hannah McLean and Corney Swanepoel, triathlete Terenzo Bozzone and yachties Jo Aleh and Thomas Ashley.
Most of their recipients were first recognised by the long-standing New Zealand Herald Junior Sports Awards. "It is disappointing this contact with so many good people and organisations will be lost," said Regency Duty Free chief executive Kelvin Ricketts yesterday.
"But given the decision [to hand sole rights to DFS], all these programmes have now ended.
"If you take the emotion out of it, most airports, including Christchurch, where we no longer have a presence, and Wellington, where we have sole rights, now have just the one operator.
"To be honest I thought we would be successful but in the end it purely came down to dollars," said Mr Ricketts.
A spokeswoman for the Commerce Commission said they had received a complaint regarding the duty-free decision and were currently assessing it.
