Paraparaumu Airport’s multi-million dollar makeover

Kapiti Coast business passengers will shortly have a much quicker – and slicker – route to Auckland. From October this year, an Air Nelson Paraparaumu-Auckland service will fly 50-person planes 18 times a week, from a significantly upgraded airport.

Travellers from the rapidly expanding Kapiti Coast region currently have to make a 45-minute drive to Wellington Airport. Airport chief executive Steve Bootten said local business people would be able to “roll out of bed” for a 10 minute drive and a 70 minute flight. Currently, he estimated, a Porirua businessman would have to rise before 6am to make an 8.30am meeting in Auckland.

The 70-plus-year-old Paraparaumu Airport will undergo a significant upgrade to ready itself for the commercial flights. Construction will soon begin on a Kapiti Coast-themed airport terminal, and on a car park. Runway resurfacing will begin in February, and an upgrade of runway lighting and navigational aids are also planned. The overall cost of the airport development is estimated at $3.5million.

The expense is one-half of a business plan hoped to act as a “catalyst for development” in the region. The other half is the simultaneous development of the Kapiti Landing Business Park, on the land surrounding the airport. The first business building, an 8,700sq m $12m Mitre10 Megastore, is set to open in March this year.

The projected cost of the park and airport development over the next 10-15 years is $750m.Paraparaumu Airport Holdings bought the airport in 2006 for around $40m.

Airport owner Sir Noel Robinson said the resumption of commercial services had always been the underlying objective of the airport redevelopment. Plans had been halted previously by five years of RMA negotiations and other regulatory processes. Developers also had to find solutions to a local coalition’s opposition, complaining about the effects of noise on more than 350 nearby houses.

Mr Bootten said future expansion would focus on increasing the frequency of flights to Auckland. Flights to other major centres were also a possibility, as were flights between smaller centres.