Otago Daily Times, 14 March 2020

Many have suggested the “love and the load” of increasing airline demand should be shared with Invercargill and Dunedin international Airports, which both have spare capacity and to create greater regional dispersal of tourism as desired by the government and NZ tourism Inc.

QAC CEO Colin Keel has kiboshed this, saying it’s against the Commerce Act.  Mark Price here investigates further.  Much further investigation is required, by a lawyer whose main aim isn’t to shut the idea down. Impacts of global government responses to Covid19 will dampen demand for some time, but QAC’s plans will not go away until refused. Interesting to note that in this article, Mayor Boult acknowledged he was “not in any way” qualified to comment on provisions of the Commerce Act.  Shows he learnt from Auckland International Airport’s very quick denial of his threat to fellow councillors that AIA could use this act to sue council if they voted to exclude airport noise boundary expansion in late February.

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