Rotorua attacks regional airport plan

By JO-MARIE BROWN

A report which suggests a single regional airport should be built in the Bay of Plenty to service Rotorua, Tauranga and Whakatane has upset airport authorities and tourism operators.

The $60,000 study, commissioned by Environment Bay of Plenty, says the present airports in all three centres are failing to provide adequate financial returns.

The Bay of Plenty accounts for just 4 per cent of domestic air passengers nationally and airlines would prefer a regional airport to allow them to consolidate their networks, the report says.

The findings, released yesterday, have drawn strong criticism, particularly in Rotorua, where a runway is being extended at a cost of $16 million to cater for Boeing 737-300s.

Rotorua Regional Airport chairman Neil Oppatt said the report was "flawed" as it did not consider how valuable international visitors were to the city's economy.

"What's more disturbing is that the authors of the report never interviewed anyone from the tourism industry, yet that industry is responsible for one-third of the passengers flying into the Bay of Plenty."

Mr Oppatt was confident that transtasman flights would touch down in Rotorua within three years.

Both Rotorua and Tauranga airport authorities rejected the report's claim that they were not making adequate financial returns.

Tauranga Airport Committee chairman Stuart Crosby said the report had compared the economic value of the airport to the Port of Tauranga, which was like comparing apples with oranges.

The report, prepared by Auckland consultants McGregor and Company, describes Whakatane airport as at risk of having scheduled airline services cut altogether in the next two decades if passenger demand does not increase.

The report says all three airports could continue to operate past 2021, but the present set-up poses risks to the future economic and social development of the Bay of Plenty.

Rotorua's Tourism Advisory Board chairman, Neville Nicholson, said the "appalling" report should be ignored.

Environment BOP chairman John Cronin said he had expected that the report would be controversial and that people would be parochial in their comments.

"But our job is to plan on a bigger, regional basis.

"We don't want to finish up dysfunctional like Auckland because of a lack of planning."

Any regional airport would be more than 10 years away and a roading network that could include four-lane highways would be needed so the airport could be reached easily from all three centres.

Mr Cronin said Environment BOP would consider the report in February and was likely to proceed with stage two of the study to determine the best location for a regional airport.