Turning the sod for Auckland Airpoprt's second runway, Annette King speech

Thank you for inviting me to join you today for such an important ceremonial occasion, turning the first sod for the second runway at Auckland Airport.

I'd want to acknowledge my parliamentary colleague, Transport Safety Minister Harry Duynhoven

I also want to acknowledge my old friend and Manukau City Mayor Sir Barry Curtis and wish him well for the future. Sir Barry has been a loyal and true New Zealander, serving his community tirelessly for years.

Acknowledgements also to Auckland Regional Council chair Mike Lee, Auckland International Airport Ltd chair John Maasland, chief executive Don Huse, and all the other distinguished guests.

This airport has a huge future, but is also rich in its history. The airport you see before you today started life in 1928 as the Auckland Aero Club, a strip of land rented from McRae Peacock's dairy farm in Māngere.

Two years later, the Auckland City Council reviewed potential sites for an airport and named three as suitable: Point England in Tāmaki, Massey Park Estate in Papakura, and, where we stand today, in Māngere. Mangere was an excellent decision. Over the next 30 years, the airport continued to grow, receiving famous visitors including Jean Batten, and by 1960 work had begun on an international airport.

Auckland International Airport was opened on 29 January 1966 and, like all other airports of the day, was constituted as a "joint-venture" partnership between the Crown and Auckland local authorities. Some 20 years later, it was the first joint-venture airport to be corporatised and Auckland International Airport Ltd assumed control of the airport assets in 1988.

Leap forward another 20 years and Auckland Airport is undisputed as our gateway to the nation, and as an integral part of New Zealand's air transport network, and is now about to undertake another historic step towards accommodating future air transport growth.

The value of Auckland Airport to this region, to the country as a whole, and to our economy, should never be underestimated. The Airport's performance as the nation's welcome-mat is vital to our country's success.

The sheer volume of freight and passengers moving through the airport is remarkable. Reflect for a moment on these figures: Auckland Airport handles more than 70 percent of the country's international passengers, managing 11 million passengers every year.

By value it is the country's second-ranked freight port, putting through more than $7 billion of exports annually, and every day it handles 105 international flights and 329 domestic flights.

These figures alone cement Auckland Airport as one of New Zealand's most important economic assets. But add to these figures evidence that the airport generates and facilitates more than $19 billion a year worth of value for the New Zealand economy, and sustains, directly and indirectly, around 283,000 full-time equivalent jobs – 15 percent of our national employment – and what we have here is a truly vital piece of our infrastructure.

As such, its success is vital to this Government's key goal of economic transformation and that is why I am delighted to be here today to help turn the first sod for Auckland Airport's second runway. The Government applauds the airport company's vision.

Your foresight, and your ability to respond to the shifting demands of aviation, is vital to New Zealand. The sector is changing rapidly; aircraft have become faster, bigger, more comfortable and more versatile.

But a new test for aviation is now high on the agenda for politicians and the public, both here and abroad. For want of a better expression I will call it the 'greening of the airways' and I am sure you know where I am coming from.

Worldwide there is a focus on the environment and climate change, the need for greater sustainability and the reduction of pollution in all its forms. Greenhouse gas emissions from aviation are growing rapidly. Standing at around two percent currently, and predicted to reach three percent by 2050, aviation greenhouse gas emissions are a small proportion of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions, but emissions from international aviation have been growing at a rate of 3.4 percent since 1990.

Over the past ten years, the international aviation sector has been proactive in tackling this issue in many ways. Because fuel makes up a large part of the industry's overhead costs, there has been a focus on fuel economy, but there are clearly signs more may be required.

The aviation industry, in fact, needs to lead the response on environmental issues. And that extends beyond the carriers getting smart about technologies. It means innovation, like the recycling project already underway at this airport. Last year, 10,500 tonnes of concrete slabs taken during the runway replacement were recycled and a further 18,000 tonnes has been crushed for reuse this year.

Leading environmental issues also means smarter air traffic control – in Europe alone flight delays are costing 15 million minutes of unnecessary flight a year – that translates into $1.5 billion in wasted operating costs and more than a million tons of CO2 waste.

Alongside smarter air traffic control is the need for more space at airports to cope with the increasing number of flights. Here, the Airways Corporation has already reviewed procedures and, with Air New Zealand, is trialling new descent profiles into Auckland to reduce emissions during the approach phase of a flight.

The corporation, with its satellite-based system for controlling the vast amount of oceanic airspace that New Zealand manages, has been offering airlines flexible routing to take advantage of favourable winds for several years.

Ultimately, a busy airport with a single-runway will face operational constraints as to the number of landings and take-offs that can be achieved while maintaining physical safety clearances for air traffic control purposes.

A second runway at Auckland Airport will ultimately allow for future overall growth in air traffic and enable domestic and short-haul international traffic to free up the main runway for long-haul traffic. And two runways will enable Air Traffic Control to work smartly to reduce delays in busy periods, thereby contributing towards further reducing emissions.

Today's groundbreaking marks the beginning of work on what will be a vital piece of transport infrastructure. The main earthworks will begin in December, and stage one, a 1200 metre runway for general aviation and small turbo-prop airliners like the Beech 1900, will be completed by December 2010 and operational by February 2011. There is almost two kilometres of separation between runways, allowing future simultaneous operations in all weather conditions.

Don --- congratulations on making the aspiration of a second runway a reality. As a frequent visitor to Auckland, I'll be keeping a close eye on progress as I come into land and I look forward to one day experiencing your second runway first hand as a passenger.

I wish you well for the project ahead.

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