It’s Wednesday, and with the travel-tech crowd only just out of town, the day’s news is still weighted to the lower South Island. Here’s what’s moving.
Fiji Airways is looking seriously at Nadi to Queenstown
Fiji Airways chief executive Paul Scurrah told the closing day of WiT Queenstown that the airline is seriously considering a Nadi to Queenstown service and is working through the operational challenges the route would bring. He stopped short of any commitment, saying only that the airline wants to make it happen.
The interest is in who the route would carry rather than how many. Fiji Airways already serves three New Zealand and three Australian ports and functions as a feeder into the region, and a Nadi hub stop puts a North American traveller into Queenstown without routing through Auckland or an Australian gateway. That matters for an airport whose international network is almost entirely trans-Tasman, and for South Island operators whose highest-value inbound market has to cross the country before it reaches them. Queenstown’s runway, curfew and terminal constraints are presumably a large part of the challenges Scurrah referred to, and nothing about the timing is settled.
Source: TRAVELinc Memo
Stat of the day
722,000
International passenger movements through Auckland Airport in June, down 4% on June last year. (Auckland Airport monthly traffic update)
Auckland’s June was down while the south filled up
Auckland Airport’s June traffic update makes an awkward pairing with the record winter being forecast further south. International movements fell 4% year on year to 722,000, and domestic movements were down 5% on 6% less seat capacity, which at least lifted domestic load factors to 81%. The rolling twelve-month passenger count is still up 2%, so this is a soft month rather than a reversal.
The single biggest drag is one region. Passengers on Auckland’s Middle East routes were down 62% and seat capacity down 53% against June last year, the continuing effect of capacity pulled off those services. For inbound operators the practical read is that European and UK visitors who used a Gulf hub to reach New Zealand have fewer easy ways to do it, and that the growth story in arrivals is not being carried evenly by every gateway.
Source: Auckland Airport monthly traffic updates
A 1,250-house Queenstown development is sent back for homework
The fast-track approvals panel convener, Jane Borthwick, has declined to refer Ridgeburn, a 1,250-house residential and commercial village proposal at Arrow Junction, to an expert panel in its current state. The applicant has until 10 August to provide more information.
The stated reasons are the ones the district keeps returning to: the site sits outside planned growth areas, the supporting infrastructure is not programmed or funded, there is no integrated transport assessment, and the traffic case leans on public transport that does not yet exist. Queenstown Lakes District Council questioned whether the applicant’s transport projections were realistic enough to accept. Housing supply is the hard limit on the district’s tourism workforce, so a knock-back on a project this size is not good news for operators trying to staff a record winter. It is also a fair reminder that fast-track is a process, not a shortcut around the roads.
Source: Otago Daily Times
The Rees-Dart is still cut, with no reopening date
Six months after a landslip took out about 10 metres of track on a steep bluff two hours from the Paradise road end, the Department of Conservation still cannot say when the Rees-Dart circuit will reopen. Acting operations manager Bridget Railton describes the slip as stationary but unstable, with the Dart River undercutting the bank at both ends and future weather events likely to accelerate the erosion.
DOC is weighing a realignment around the slip against building a gantry structure across it, and says costing a reopening is premature until it settles on an approach. Trampers can still walk the Rees Valley as an in-and-out, or pay for a helicopter transfer over the broken section, which is not the same product. This is the circuit’s third closure in twelve years after the 2014 Sandy Bluff slip, and the pattern is worth noting for anyone whose itineraries depend on backcountry routes on unstable ground.
Source: Otago Daily Times
Queenstown Airport hires a port builder to run its capital programme
Queenstown Airport has appointed Mike Simmers to the new role of chief of infrastructure, starting next month. He comes from Lyttelton Port Company, where he was chief infrastructure officer and led wharf development, land reclamation and rail upgrades, and he has run multi-year capital programmes worth more than $600 million.
The airport calls the work ahead a once-in-a-generation infrastructure programme, and creating a dedicated executive role for it says something about the scale. Chief executive Shane O’Hare made the point that matters operationally: the job is delivering major works while keeping the airport running. Anyone flying 785,000 winter passengers through a single-runway airport in a constrained valley will recognise why that qualifier was included.
Source: Otago Daily Times
Coming up
- 24 July – Rainbow opens, with Mt Cheeseman on 25 July and Mt Olympus on 26 July, snow permitting
- 30 July – Early-bird registration closes for Tourism Summit Aotearoa
- 1 August – Visa Wellington On a Plate opens, running all month
- 7 August – Submissions close on the RCT Group zipline concession application
- 10 August – Ridgeburn’s deadline to supply further information to the fast-track panel
- 24 August – Group, tour escort and ADS FIT visa applications move to enhanced Immigration Online
- 28 October – Air New Zealand’s first direct Christchurch–Singapore service departs
- 4 November – Tourism Summit Aotearoa and NZ Tourism Awards, Te Pae Christchurch
That's today's briefing. The Shoulder Season is back every weekday morning.