Auckland Airport growth strategy takes flight

Anthony Frankham – Chairman
and Simon Moutter – Chief Executive

In spite of challenging trading conditions, Auckland Airport maintained a firm strategic focus on driving growth initiatives over the half-year.

This focus on growth, while intended to build sustainable long-term success, has already generated momentum and delivered a string of business achievements. We are pleased with our strategic and operational progress over the last six months and our financial results are beginning to show some benefit from these accomplishments and an improving passenger volume trend.

Signs are emerging that the worst of the economic storm caused by the global financial crisis has passed and that negative pressures on aviation and travel are beginning to ease. International Air Transport Association (IATA) figures released recently showed that global passenger demand declined 3.5 percent in the 2009 calendar year, which IATA described as the “worst year the industry has ever seen”. Encouragingly though, this decline slowed in the latter stages of the year and December 2009 global passenger demand was 4.5 per cent up on December 2008.

At Auckland Airport, we have seen our own signs of recovery, with our October to December quarter in particular showing consistent growth in Auckland Airport monthly passenger numbers on the back of increased tourism industry activity. We believe stability and confidence is slowly but surely returning to the New Zealand travel market.

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