Otago Daily Times, 26 November 2020

Well, no Jim, it isn’t. Important though he and we might be :-), Christchurch International Airport Ltd is unlikely to make a $45 million international airport bid just to dig a hole for us. It has far more to do with the hole already dug for their own airport by the earthquakes and their aftermath.  Central Lakes offers them a growth alternative, and pilots a far safer flying option than ZQN. Remember QAC also had this strategic option but chose not to exercise it.

LINK to article here.

We note that the ODT removed the video originally embedded in this article, after we questioned the veracity of a claimed “more than 10,000 residents” who would be impacted by the noise, fumes, lighting and flight path of wide-bodied jets landing at Tarras. 

Although unidentified in the ODT video, Chris Goddard told us he based his claim on census information and flight path assumptions that would have jets looping over either Cromwell or Lake Hawea and reaching a maximum 150m height by halfway down Lake Dunstan.  Wide-bodied but under-powered perhaps?

That’s one perspective. Or to enable us to compare apples with apples, let’s look at a 12 km radius (beyond which impacts would be minimal) around the three potential Central/Queenstown Lakes international airports:

• Tarras – 100 residences total.
• Queenstown – everyone living in Queenstown, Frankton, Arrowtown and in the area stretching from Gibbston to Closeburn to Wye Creek.
• Wānaka – everyone from Wanaka to Luggate to Hawea.