It’s Friday, and it’s another quiet news morning. Two of today’s four items are the same story at different scales: a coastal visitor asset that weather keeps damaging, and someone having to decide whether it is still worth keeping. Here’s what’s moving.
Air New Zealand gets 87.3 percent of September flights in on time, up from 75.5 percent a year ago
Air New Zealand says 87.3 percent of its flights in September arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, up from 85.3 percent in August and 75.5 percent in September 2025. It ran 13,072 flights in the month, and the regional turboprop network did best at 90.3 percent. Cancellations fell to 1.4 percent of flights, from 2.5 percent in August and 3.3 percent a year earlier. Cirium’s September rankings put the airline third among Asia Pacific carriers, against a global average of 77.7 percent. These are the airline’s own figures, as reported by Air New Zealand.
Most of the gain comes from small process changes, and the airline names one. It trialled getting the gate and passengers ready so that general boarding starts the moment the aircraft is cleared, which it calls “pre-staging”. On international departures from Auckland, extended boarding delays fell by about 45 percent and boarding began nearly four minutes earlier. On domestic jets out of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, boarding-related delays fell by about 25 percent. Since 1 October it has been standard on every Air New Zealand departure from a New Zealand airport.
For operators, punctuality decides whether a tight connection to an afternoon activity holds and whether a guest arrives in time for dinner. On September’s numbers, 12.7 percent of 13,072 flights still came in late, which is roughly 1,660 flights in the month. Chief operations officer Kate Boyer said “our focus is the other 12.7 percent”. The real test is whether the airline can hold these numbers through November to February, when aircraft and crews are stretched hardest.
Stat of the day
87.3%
Air New Zealand flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule in September, up 11.8 points on the 75.5 percent of September 2025. (Air New Zealand, citing Cirium)
Source: Air New Zealand
Piha’s campground reopens on Monday after the local board overrules council staff
The Waitākere Ranges Local Board voted unanimously on Thursday evening to let overnight camping return to the Piha Domain campground for the 2026-27 summer. The campground had been closed since June while Auckland Council assessed its flood risk. Staff put two options to the board: stop overnight camping at the site, which in effect would close it for good, or reopen it for this summer. Staff recommended closing it. The board chose to reopen. Earlier diaries in this briefing had the decision down for 22 October, but it has now been made.
The council says reopening depends on flood warning systems, monitoring, evacuation procedures and other operational controls being in place. Camp manager Fiona Anderson says she already meets those conditions. She has an independently reviewed trigger action response plan, has closed off the third of the site that runs along the Piha Stream, and opens on Monday. Part of the site flooded in 2018, and a council report that year found future flooding could cost lives. A Blue Barn engineering report released last month set out three futures for the campground: reconfigure it, relocate it, or withdraw from the site in a managed way.
About 80 locals attended the meeting. The board chair said that without the campground the board could see “a collapse of a whole series of businesses” in the area. Auckland Council also said it is putting trigger action response plans in place at its own regional park campgrounds and at those run under lease. For holiday parks and campgrounds on coastal flats, the lesson is that keeping the site open has become something to argue for one summer at a time. The board approved this season only, and Anderson says she hopes the campground will be allowed to stay open beyond it.
DOC will reroute the Hahei Beach Short Walk to Cathedral Cove rather than stabilise it
The Hahei Beach Short Walk links Hahei Beach to the track down to Mautohe Cathedral Cove. A landslide early this year damaged it and wrecked an earlier reroute. The Department of Conservation has now settled on a new route after meeting the Hahei Residents and Ratepayers Association twice. The residents wanted to keep the existing line and build a bypass around the slip. DOC is holding to a reroute instead.
The reason comes down to cost. In 2024, stabilising the track around two bridges on its upper section was estimated at $303,000. Building the reroute is now estimated at $121,000. DOC also says the problems run the whole length of the track, so fixing one section would not remove the wider risk. The new route will come down from Grange Road with views across Hahei Beach to two pā sites. Infrastructure at Waimata Gemstone Bay will be taken out and reused, and the Stingray Bay structures will be removed. Contractors start on 14 November, and the track stays closed until then.
The cove is one of the four sites where the Government is investigating access charges for international visitors, along with the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Aoraki Mount Cook and Milford Sound Piopiotahi. Charging cannot begin until the Conservation Amendment Bill is law. DOC’s spending here shows the rule it now applies across the estate: money goes to tracks that can survive the next storm, not back onto ground that keeps failing. Operators who build product around short walks should expect more reroutes and fewer like-for-like repairs.
Source: Department of Conservation, Department of Conservation: access charges
A new Tourism Leadership Group will advise on which parts of the Tourism Policy Statement come first
The Government has set up a Tourism Leadership Group, announced by MBIE on Thursday, to advise the Tourism and Hospitality Minister on the opportunities and problems facing the tourism system. It will also recommend which parts of the Tourism Policy Statement should be put into effect first. That statement was released in late June and handed local government the lead on destination management, domestic marketing through regional tourism organisations, and visitor infrastructure.
The group has eight members from outside government. Between them they cover accommodation, aviation, hospitality, events, regional tourism, destination management, local government, Māori tourism and business leadership. Senior leaders from MBIE, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport and Tourism New Zealand also sit on it. MBIE’s Anna Clark is government co-chair. RealNZ chief executive Dave Beeche is industry co-chair.
The question is what it gets used for. The policy statement shifts a lot of work onto councils, and the parties are still arguing about how those councils pay for it: a bed tax set locally, or a share of the International Visitor Levy. An industry-led group deciding what comes first is a useful counterweight to that argument. It is also being formed three weeks before the 7 November election, and it advises whoever holds the portfolio after that.
Source: MBIE
Coming up
- 18 October: Cardrona’s extended closing day
- 19 October: Piha Domain campground reopens for overnight camping, and the Te Tapuwae o Rongokako marine reserve review survey closes
- 22 October: Lyttelton’s 2026-27 cruise season opens
- 24-26 October: Buses replace all Metlink trains in the Wellington region over Labour Weekend
- 25 October: The airlines’ summer scheduling season begins
- 26 October: Air New Zealand’s first Auckland to Western Sydney service
- 28 October: Reserve Bank OCR decision, and Air New Zealand’s first Christchurch to Singapore service
- 1 November: Backcountry Hut Tickets move to DOC’s online booking system
- 4 November: Tourism Summit Aotearoa and the NZ Tourism Awards, Te Pae Christchurch
- 7 November: General election
- 14 November: Contractors start on the Hahei Beach Short Walk reroute
- 7 April 2027: Air New Zealand’s codeshare with Qantas ends
That's today's briefing. The Shoulder Season is back every weekday morning.