Rebuilding the skies: Insights from Christchurch International Airport

“New Zealanders have the highest propensity to fly in the world. So we jump on airplanes at the drop of a hat, either domestically or internationally… We’re a long thin country with challenging terrain. Mountains, valleys a bit of water between north and south island, so we jump on airplanes all the time.”

“When the earthquake hit New Zealand in 2022, it was a brutal lesson for us because our market disappeared overnight… What we had to do was put in place the means to keep some of the airlines operating during that rebuild period. But what it taught us is that we’ve got to be, as a company, as CIAL for our shareholders, we had to be way more diversified in where we got our revenues from. So come the pandemic, our business was split three ways, a third on aero income, a third on retail, duty free, food and beverages, and a third on real estate. And actually that kept us alive all the way through the pandemic. We actually made a profit. We didn’t lay off any staff members during that and we’ve come out of that way stronger. “