Summer Revamp for New Plymouth Airport

Visitors to New Plymouth Airport in the next few weeks will see a lot of work taking place above and below ground.

Today (Wednesday), the installation of new car park ticket machines has begun. These will do away with the former paper tickets and issue cards instead, which will reduce machine jams and prevent tickets being blown away by the wind.

Under-boring for a section of the Waitara to New Plymouth sewer line will start on site tomorrow, with the subsurface pipes being drilled under Airport Drive, at the intersection to Helicopters NZ and across the grass runway.

The grass runway will be closed for up to four days around the end of the month to accommodate the work.

Once the sewer work has moved beyond the public car park’s intersection with Airport Drive, the unsealed overflow car park will be expanded and sealed. The additional 37 car parks will bring the total public car park capacity to 329.

This will be followed by the extension of the rental car park, adding 21 car parks and improving the taxi parking feeder lane.

Says Manager Airport Kevin Hill: “This is the quietest time at the airport with business travel at its minimum, so we have the capacity for all these changes to take place without too much disruption to the public.

“However in late January or early February the sewer work will require an open trench on the loop road to the east of the airport, during which traffic will be down to one lane.”

Mr Hill says the new parking ticket machines will be able to alert staff electronically if there is a breakdown. “There will also be one payment machine inside the terminal and one outside to validate the parking tickets, which can take cash, eftpos or credit cards.”