Latest / Best of Business / Justin Watson: Christchurch Airport chief executive on the airport posting its strongest ever financial result

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Justin Watson: Christchurch Airport chief executive on the airport posting its strongest ever financial result · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
• 0:13
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• 0:17
  Speaker 1: more good news for Christchurch, as if Christchurch doesn't even
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  Speaker 1: need more. Christchurch Airport has just reported their strongest financial
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  Speaker 1: result yet for the year ending June 30th. Profit after
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  Speaker 1: tax is $ 64. 9 million, up 30% on last year. They've
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  Speaker 1: also finished some infrastructure projects. They've got more on the way.
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  Speaker 1: The chief executive of Christchurch Airport, Justin Watson, is with us. Hello, Justin.
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  Speaker 2: Hi there, Heather. How are you?
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  Speaker 1: I'm very well, thank you. You must be pleased with this?
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  Speaker 2: Very much so.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's been a lot of hard work over
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  Speaker 3: a number of years to get to where we are now,
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  Speaker 3: but we're certainly seeing the fruits of that labour now.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, what do you put it down to? Is this
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  Speaker 1: partly because everybody wants to come to Christchurch?
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  Speaker 2: It's a bit of that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, long-haul visitors, which were up sort of 13%, 14%
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  Speaker 3: over the last year, they seeing the South Island as
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  Speaker 3: a nice, safe, attractive place to go. And so with
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  Speaker 3: everything else that's going on in the rest of the world,
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  Speaker 3: the South Island is a bit of a haven.
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  Speaker 2: And so we're seeing that.
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  Speaker 3: We're also seeing the strength of Christchurch as a destination
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  Speaker 3: with all the amazing new facilities, the event schedule. More
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  Speaker 3: and more people want to come and visit. More and
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  Speaker 3: more people want to come and live. to go to university.
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  Speaker 3: And so it's a combination of both of those that
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  Speaker 3: we're seeing.
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  Speaker 1: Are you also seeing an uptick in the people who
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  Speaker 1: just use you as a gateway airport? I mean, like
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  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of obviously, um, the Sri Lanka flights that
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  Speaker 1: have just been announced by Jetstar. Do we, can you
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  Speaker 1: fly out of any, any other airport in this country
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  Speaker 1: through to Sri Lanka?
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  Speaker 3: Uh, I mean, ultimately you will be able to, um,
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  Speaker 3: fire various kind of challenging ways, but, um, You know,
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  Speaker 3: what Qantas and Jetstar have done really well is open
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  Speaker 3: pipes between Australia and New Zealand and then a lot
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  Speaker 3: of places in Southeast Asia, making it easier for passengers
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  Speaker 3: to flow between those countries.
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  Speaker 2: And that's kind of what you're seeing with the Sri
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  Speaker 2: Lankan option.
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  Speaker 1: Are you also cutting Auckland Airport's lunch a little bit?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think, you know, we're all growing, which is great.
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  Speaker 3: We've got all the same airline services into Christchurch as
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  Speaker 3: Auckland does. And What we actually see is people like
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  Speaker 3: that because people like to come in one part and
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  Speaker 3: trip around New Zealand and go out the other. So
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  Speaker 3: we see it as being more complimentary than kind of
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  Speaker 3: taking off Auckland.
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  Speaker 1: How much of your profit is returned to the council?
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  Speaker 3: So as part of this year's operating profit, we distribute $ 51.
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  Speaker 2: 5 million and that's up $ 6. 8 million. 75% of that
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  Speaker 2: goes to.
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  Speaker 3: The council via Christchurch City Holdings, and the rest goes
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  Speaker 3: to the ground.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, how good. That'll keep those rate rises down, won't it? Okay,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: do you think that the Iran war is going to
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  Speaker 1: continue to cause you guys troubles? Are you through the
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  Speaker 1: worst of it?
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  Speaker 3: No, I think, in fact, what we'll see is it's
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  Speaker 3: actually going to impact us a little bit more over
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  Speaker 3: the next six to nine months because what you've got
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  Speaker 3: is you've got– you've got a lot of airlines that
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  Speaker 3: have come off fuel hedges and you've got a lot
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  Speaker 3: of people that are now buying tickets in a world
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  Speaker 3: where the prices are inflated. And so I think, especially
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  Speaker 3: on the domestic front, you'll see a whole lot of
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  Speaker 3: discretionary travel stop and dry up because airlines just won't
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  Speaker 3: be able to offer the fares that they used to.
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  Speaker 3: And so I think that's probably got to, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the next six months, we'll see that. It's probably also
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  Speaker 3: got a long tail before it ultimately gets back to
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  Speaker 3: where it was, you know, assuming something changes up there.
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  Speaker 3: But internationally, international was quite a different story. International, they don't,
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  Speaker 3: they're not as sensitive, you know. New Zealand is a
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  Speaker 3: trip of a lifetime to a high value leisure traveller
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  Speaker 3: and they don't want to give up on that. And
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  Speaker 3: so we might see them avoiding the Middle East, for example, but,
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  Speaker 3: you know, they still want to come down, they still
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  Speaker 3: want their holiday and they still want to enjoy themselves.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, they want to kind of get away from
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  Speaker 2: what's going on in the rest of the world.
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  Speaker 1: You can't blame them. Justin, look after yourself and thanks
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  Speaker 1: very much for your time. That's Justin Watson, Chief Executive
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  Speaker 1: of Christchurch Airport.