10 Jan 2018

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The equivalent of the entire population of Canterbury and the West Coast passed through Christchurch Airport last month, making it the airport’s busiest month ever.

Figures show that more passengers passed through the airport’s terminal in December than in any month on record.

Some 638,043 passengers used the terminal during December, up 4.8 per cent on the previous December.

A crowd of passengers inside the terminal at Christchurch Airport.

A record number of passengers passed through Christchurch Airport in December.

“This equates to more than the entire population of Canterbury and the West Coast through the terminal during the past month alone,” says Christchurch Airport’s Chief Aeronautical and Commercial Officer Justin Watson.

“The growth highlights the resurgent contribution Christchurch makes as the primary gateway to the South Island, and reflects the significant airline capacity growth the airport has achieved with its new and existing airline partners over the past three years.

“New services or larger aircraft are now flying between Christchurch and Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Pacific Islands, as well as domestically within New Zealand. Pleasingly, all our international airline partners are telling us most seats were full during December.”

International arrivals led the December growth, with a 7.7 per cent increase across the month.

The largest increases came on long-haul flights from Asia, with China up 41 per cent, Hong Kong 79 per cent, India 26 per cent and South Korea 23 per cent.

European visitors also grew strongly at 12 per cent out of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Mr Watson says South Island tourism industry is the big winner from growth at Christchurch Airport, as visitors arriving here go on to visit more regions in the South Island than any other arrival point in New Zealand.

“December is the start of the busy visitor season, with the strong growth forecast to continue through until March,” he says.

“We’re well over 20,000 passengers a day on average and the terminal has a real buzz and sense of excitement about it. It’s a big job handling that number of people and everyone from the airlines, ground operators, government agencies, rental car operators and airport staff have done a fantastic job making sure everything runs smoothly.''