It’s Friday. Two councils are rethinking what they should own in the visitor economy, one hostel brand is betting on the opposite, and the accident commission has a lesson for every operator who has ever watched a passenger reach for a bag. Here’s what’s moving.
The accident commission says a missed crack started an Air New Zealand engine fire, and cabin bags slowed the evacuation
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission published its final report on Friday into the engine fire on an Air New Zealand ATR72-600 flying from Christchurch to Wellington on 1 September 2024, with 70 passengers and four crew on board. The left engine caught fire shortly before landing. The aircraft landed safely, the crew discharged fire suppressant, the fire warnings stayed on, and the captain ordered an evacuation.
The cause was a fatigue crack in a low-pressure turbine blade that was not picked up when Pratt & Whitney Canada overhauled the engine, less than four flying hours before the fire. A second blade from the same engine also showed signs of fatigue. The evacuation took 2 minutes 51 seconds against a certification benchmark of 90 seconds. RNZ reports that of the 27 passengers who left by the forward exits, 19 took their luggage with them. Others were surprised by the size of those exits, had to step onto the lip of the door and drop nearly two metres to the ground, and several walked near the engine that had been burning. Chief investigator Louise Cook said the risk to life “increases exponentially” once an evacuation runs past 90 seconds.
TAIC has recommended that Pratt & Whitney Canada strengthen its quality assurance on overhauls, and that Air New Zealand improve its evacuation training, passenger briefings and safety information. The airline’s chief safety and risk officer, Nathan McGraw, said it accepted the findings and had already made changes. The report lands the day after an annual meeting at which, as the NZ Herald put it, shareholders got no earnings guidance. For anyone who briefs groups before a flight, a boat or a helicopter, the bags finding is the part to keep: the instruction to leave them behind is the one people ignore, and it is the one that costs the most time.
Stat of the day
19 of 27
Passengers leaving by the forward exits who took their luggage with them, on an evacuation that ran to 2 minutes 51 seconds against a 90-second benchmark. (TAIC, RNZ)
Source: TAIC, RNZ, 1News, NZ Herald
Napier wants to hand Kennedy Park to an Australian-owned holiday park operator for about $20 million
Napier City Council is proposing to sell the assets and operations of Kennedy Park Resort, its council-owned holiday park, to Hampshire (NZ) for about $20 million. The council would keep the land and lease it for 20 years, with a right of renewal for a further 10. The proceeds would clear the resort’s debt of around $8.5 million, and part of what is left would be invested so the council could afford to buy the business back at the end of the lease. Staff would transfer to Hampshire on their current conditions.
Kennedy Park has operated since 1937 and covers 5.7 hectares of camping sites, motel units and villas in suburban Napier. The proposal follows a council report finding most of its major assets unprofitable. Mayor Richard McGrath said an operator with broad industry experience would lift it to the next level. There is a community drop-in at the resort on 12 October and feedback closes on 23 October.
Council-owned holiday parks are a long-standing feature of the New Zealand camping market, and a lease-and-sell structure like this one is the tidy way out: the ratepayer keeps the dirt and loses the debt and the maintenance bill. The trade-off is pricing and product, which pass to a commercial operator with its own group to run. This week alone, one council has put $1.2 million into Orana Wildlife Park and another has proposed selling a resort. The question underneath both is the same: which visitor assets a council should be carrying on its balance sheet.
Tauranga has set up a working group on its airport’s future, and a minority stake sale stays on the list
Tauranga City Council has set up a working group to look at how its airport should be governed and run. Staff put five options in front of councillors: keep it as a council activity, move it into a trust, a council-controlled organisation, or a council-controlled trading organisation, or set up a trading company that could later sell a minority stake. The group is the mayor, two councillors, a mana whenua representative and expert advisers, and the council will seek tax advice on the minority-stake option.
Mayor Mahé Drysdale was clear that this is not about selling the airport, and no decision on a stake is part of this process. Any change to ownership or governance would go out for consultation in the 2027-2037 long-term plan. The airport handles about 550,000 passengers a year and runs without ratepayer funding, earning from parking, property leases and the terminal.
Most of the country’s larger regional airports already sit in council-owned companies, so moving Tauranga to arm’s length would be the conventional step. A trading company can borrow, invest and be held to commercial targets in a way a council department cannot, which matters to any airport chasing new routes. The stake sale is the part to watch, because it is the option that turns a piece of regional infrastructure into an asset with an outside shareholder.
Source: RNZ, Tauranga City Council via Scoop
Drifter is adding 701 beds in Wellington and Auckland, and says four in five guests at its flagships are international
Drifter, the hotel-hostel brand with 11 properties and about 3,500 beds across Australia and New Zealand, has set out its next three openings. Drifter Wellington, in the former Te Aro post office, is due in the last quarter of this year with 287 beds in 51 rooms. Drifter Auckland follows in the second quarter of 2027 with 414 beds in 80 rooms. In the third quarter of 2027 its Melbourne property becomes the brand’s largest, at 775 beds.
The figures the company gives on its guests are the interesting part. International visitors make up 80 to 85 percent of occupancy at its flagship properties, women account for 60 percent of guests so far this year, and private rooms bring in 46 percent of revenue in Christchurch. Co-founder Hugh Stephenson said travellers want flexibility in how they stay and experiences that feel connected to the city.
That 46 percent is the model in one number. The hybrid hostel sells dorm beds to the budget traveller and private rooms to the traveller who would once have booked a mid-range hotel, under one roof and one set of staff. Seven hundred new beds in the two North Island cities is a sizeable addition to the lower end of the accommodation market, and a bet that the backpacker and flashpacker end of the market has more room to grow than the hotels above it.
Source: Hotel Management
The first 2,000 seedlings from kauri that may resist dieback have gone into the Waitākere Ranges
Two thousand kauri seedlings were planted in the Waitākere Ranges on Wednesday, grown from seed collected from around 650 healthy mother trees identified as possibly resistant to kauri dieback. One seed source was Aunt Agatha, a kauri around a thousand years old that has since died of the disease. The planting brought together Te Kawerau ā Maki, Auckland Council, scientists from the Bioeconomy Science Institute and volunteers.
There is still no known cure for the pathogen, which is carried in soil. Auckland Council’s Dr Sarah Killick said the best protection is to stop dirt moving between forests, which is the message every walker meets at a cleaning station. Te Kawerau ā Maki lead ranger Stuart Leighton said that when the biggest, oldest things in a forest start to die, it is a sign to focus on looking after the place.
For the visitor economy this is a very long game, measured in centuries rather than seasons, but it is the first sign in years that kauri forests like the Waitākere Ranges might one day be restocked rather than only protected. In the meantime the practical rule for anyone guiding in kauri country is unchanged: clean boots, stay on the track.
Source: RNZ
Coming up
- 27 September Daylight saving begins, clocks forward an hour at 2am
- 28 September SH11 Paihia drainage works begin under daytime stop-go, to 9 October
- 11 October Spring school holidays end
- 12 October Community drop-in on the Kennedy Park sale, at the resort, 12pm to 2pm
- 17 October Bledisloe Cup in Sydney
- 23 October Feedback closes on the Kennedy Park sale
- 28 October The Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Review and OCR decision
- 30 October Proposals close for the Tiritiri Matangi ferry licence, 5pm
- 4 November New Zealand Tourism Awards, Te Pae Christchurch
- 7 November General election
That's today's briefing. The Shoulder Season is back every weekday morning.