This morning, we sent a letter to the Mayor and Councillors, copying all Upper Clutha candidates, about our concerns around the Wānaka Airport Future Review. Here it is in full below.

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The Mayor and Councillors

Queenstown Lakes District Council 

(By email and copied to distribution list below)

Tuesday 9th September 2025

Kia ora Glynn and Councillors

RE: Wānaka Airport future planning

We are writing about the airport future planning process which is underway, now that the “future scenarios” have been shared with the community. We have serious concerns about the engagement process undertaken by Egis to date on behalf of QLDC, and also the scenarios now presented (both in terms of how they are expressed, and how they might have been arrived at).

Our concerns include but are not limited to the following:

1. Initial project stages flawed: The first stages of the future planning engagement project undertaken by Egis have been problematic, for numerous reasons. The following are some of our observations (but there are many others):
   1. Poor design of the engagement sessions (including but not limited to timing, promotion, question design and collection of data).
   2. Very poor attendance/uptake both in person and online. No attempt to accurately record attendees to drop-in sessions.
   3. A serious lack of alignment between the drop in sessions and the (hastily organised) online surveys.
   4. Frustrated community members have expressed, amongst other things, that they didn’t feel like their input was going to actually contribute to meaningful airport scenarios because of all of the above.
   5. One fifth of the respondents to the Let’s Talk feedback appear to be from outside the district (QLDC district) – from either abroad, North Island, South Island or Otago.
2. Flawed findings: The Early Community Engagement Summary from Egis is also problematic. Again, a few (but not all) of our observations:
   1. We were present during the drop-ins and do not believe the findings accurately reflect the feedback we have seen at and from those sessions or can now read on the Let’s Talk Survey. 
   2. There are no “workings” showing the rationale given for statements made (to Council) in the findings.  A key example is how Page 10 was arrived at. The catch-all statement “Become domestic airport” could imply Wānaka becoming a domestic hub and is very different from respondents wanting a few flights Wānaka-Christchurch and Wānaka-Wellington. 
   3. We believe that the draft scenarios which are presented are not indicative of the thrust of what Egis was told by the community. There are very strong themes (from the community) that are missing or significantly underplayed in the engagement report. There are themes in the report presented strongly which we believe are overplayed and would like to see evidence of how they have been arrived at in the actual data.
3. The 5 scenarios and “complimentary options” flawed: There are significant issues with the scenarios now being presented to the community for feedback, including but not limited to:
   1. The scenarios are reductively broad and appear to be intentionally so, lacking coherent, comparative assessment of benefits, impacts and downsides. 
   2. There is no road map to show how the feedback from community has led to the broad brush scenarios and complimentary options.
   3. The desire that there should be “no jets” at Wānaka airport is frequently mentioned in the feedback and yet this is not reflected back clearly in the scenarios. The need for jet aircraft to service the 3 commercial airport scenarios suggested is deliberately underplayed. None of the three commercial airport scenarios are unequivocally “no-jets.” In contrast there was minimal feedback suggesting the airport be closed (1.5%) and yet the decision has been made to “test” this by including it as one of  five scenarios.
   4. Inaccuracies and contradictions. Scenario 3 states that “This scenario would use turboprop aircraft, typically between 8-30 passengers. This is the typical size limit of aircraft that could fly to Christchurch or Wellington with the existing runway at Wānaka Airport stating the same length.”  However Air New Zealand’s ATR72s have 68 seats (which would require full accreditation under Part 139) and runway development. If a potential downside is that “Air New Zealand does not run any aircraft of this size” how can this be a valid scenario? Scenario 4 is flawed for the same reason.
   5. The scenarios present a biased approach to the upsides, downsides and financial implications for the airport. Resultant aerodrome costs, aircraft size and passenger numbers/capacity are all repeatedly downplayed in Scenarios 3-5. 
   6. The entire messaging is confused, inconsistent and completely inadequate for anyone trying to decide between the different scenarios. There is a lack of supporting information which would be required in order for the community to be allowed real assessment. These include (but are not limited to) full background financials, forward planning assumptions, likely requirements for larger jet aircraft, real world implications for GA, events such as Warbirds, demands on ratepayers for additional infrastructure, impact on tourist numbers and environment, resolving QAC ownership of surrounding airport land and impact on Project Pure. You have very strong community feedback about the need for transparency and proper background details – especially as regards over-tourism and financials, however these are almost completely omitted.
   7. There is nothing significant about governance or local community oversight of airport management attached to these scenarios – which you had very strong community feedback on, and which is critical in ensuring these scenarios can really reflect the community’s wishes.
   8. Two of the scenarios which have been included (the first and the last) appear to be “straw men” to make the other three more palatable – yet there was clear indication from the community that neither of these scenarios was wanted. To add these scenarios in steps away from the process which Aegis confirmed they would be taking for this review.
   9. The current commercial operations at the airport (of which there are many) seemed to be overlooked. The scenarios cover just GA and scheduled services.
   10. There is a concurrent Council process to develop Wānaka airport infrastructure, personnel and procedures so as to achieve certification by CAA as a Qualifying Aerodrome. CAA will then decide whether Qualifying Aerodrome certification is appropriate or whether full certification is required. QLDC requested Egis to factor in this certification yet it has been largely ignored in the public engagement process. The Part 139 application has implications for the scenarios being offered but the  community in Wānaka is largely unaware of the process and its effect on airport operations and airport management. 
   11. The assumption, by omission, is that the cosy arrangement remains ongoing between QLDC, QAC and Wānaka Airport, management services for the airport are not subject to a fully independent, competitive tender (or indeed the independent evaluation of other management models, of which there are many) and there remains the problematic ownership of land surrounding the airport by QAC (including it’s 24.99% shareholder Auckland International Airport). This is despite repeated concern in the feedback about QAC management of Wānaka Airport. The conflict of interest optics are very poor.
   12. What does “complimentary options” mean? Nobody appears to know and there is no explanation. Currently the “complimentary options” presented appear random, entirely optional and unrelated to the scenarios. This is not the way to treat significant feedback from the community.

4. WSG’s data minimised: It appears that the data provided by WSG as part of this process has been minimised. We provided statistically valid data from 533 respondents (representing our cohort of over 3,000 members, including a large number of business members). Yet this data appears to have been given little or no appropriate weighting, and our detailed feedback has been summarised alongside feedback from groups that in some cases consist of approx. half a dozen members. Our submission containing this information was sent to you all, but you can read it again here online for ease of reference.
5. The current feedback stage flawed: The data collection mechanism for feedback on these future scenarios now being presented to the community is flawed, for many reasons similar to those outlined in relation to phase one above. We will not go into those points again here.

Given that we are paying $250,000 for this piece of work, given how pivotal it is to the future of Wānaka Airport and given the background of very high levels of distrust towards Council, we are firmly of the view that Council should put this work on hold and take steps to actually get it right.

We consider that this process – because of its flaws – could be open to legal challenge. It is certainly already causing much concern in the community. It is likely to be a huge waste of money, and it will do nothing to improve the very low levels of trust of council by the community.

Please urgently advise how you are going to address these concerns. 

Ngā mihi

Wānaka Stakeholders Group Incorporated*

[Signed]
Per Meg Taylor, Chair

* Our confirmed membership at last audit on 14 July 2025 is 3,172 people

Distribution list (via email):

To: Mayor and all QLDC Councillors

Cc: 

WUCCB members

All Wānaka Ward Candidates

All Mayoral Candidates