The cost to taxpayers will be significant
There are two costs: the direct cost of building the airport, estimated at upwards of a billion dollars, and the costs to NZ taxpayers and ratepayers for ancillary infrastructure.
Supporting new infrastructure at scale is a significant burden on the community
There are so many aspects of infrastructure which would need upgrading to cope with the burden of a new airport. These include:
- Provision of additional police and medical facilities
- Airport staff housing and expansion of schools
- Duplication of retail stores
- Power supply
- Three waters
- Provision and isolation of quarantine facilities
- Flight path restrictions impacting Omarama gliding, Wanaka paragliding and local general aviation
- Displacement of rental homes by shortstay facilities
- Risks of increased rates payments by both local and Christchurch residents for all of the above, and more
With a spend this big, why is there no business plan or open public discussion?
Will Christchurch rate-payers be responsible for financial losses?
- Is there any evidence of a domestic travel demand to use Tarras instead of Wanaka or Queenstown? If half the domestic passengers currently flying to Queenstown were to use Tarras, would either airport be viable?
- Pre-Covid, Auckland was NZ’s busiest airport, with 21 million passengers. Christchurch and Wellington each had 7 millions.
- CIAL lobbied for more than 5 years to entice a Chinese airline to provide direct flights to Christchurch. For a few months China Southern Airlines provided direct service from Guangzhou, but this was cancelled with Covid. In the last pre-Covid year, around 80% of Chinese visitors arrived at Auckland, and 20% at Christchurch. From Australia, 61% arrived at Auckland, 15% at Christchurch, 12% at Queenstown and 8% at Wellington.
- 85% of international air freight passes through Auckland, and 15% through Christchurch. There is unlikely to be demand for any significant proportion to be diverted to Tarras, and this would be to the detriment of Christchurch.
- Horticultural exports from Otago currently transit Christchurch, and would receive some advantage if there were seasonal direct flights from Otago to Australia, China and Japan, to supply Christmas cherries.
- Early publicity from CIAL referred to “wide-body” jets, but recent preliminary plans are for domestic and Australia. These would compete one-for-one with Queenstown as a preferred destination.
Sustainable Tarras 