Base de datos

One strength of the air freighting process out of Christchurch is the growth in seasonal

operations, carriers and new routes. Although it still isn’t enough to cope with the outbound products, China Southern Airlines and Cathay Pacific’s seasonal flights have contributed

greatly to the capacity available in the peak season. Furthermore, the New Zealand courier post aircraft has been utilised in busy periods when required domestically, as well as GLB2 making the decision to introduce their own aircraft in 2017 to cope with the freight capacity problems. These have been found to be very successful and will continue to be operated in the future according to the respondents from CHC and GLB2. GLB1 also mentioned that there are more routes being introduced by Air New Zealand which is illustrating the growth in the industry and is a huge positive for exporters and global logistics businesses trying to find space on aircraft out of CHC.

5.3.2 Tourism campaigns

In order to obtain more aircraft capacity outbound from CHC, it requires more carriers coming inbound to Christchurch. Passenger numbers are key in order for more carriers to be coming inbound and therefore, CHC are heavily involved in tourism campaigns in order to promote the South Island, and increase the number of passengers coming in through Christchurch. This will then lead to more aircraft with capacity outbound from CHC. The respondent from CHC stated that they are making multi-million dollar investments into key markets such as Australia, China, Japan and the UK. Almost all of these campaigns link in with tourism partners such as Christchurch or New Zealand Tourism, promoting the South Island. CHC has had huge benefits from this, resulting in increased air traffic and inbound passengers and ultimately, the campaigns will continue to be utilised so long as it brings in more carriers which exporters and GLBs can fill with outbound products.

5.3.3 Import capacity

The respondent from CHC discussed a recent claim that there is now a shortage of import capacity on aircraft coming into Christchurch. New Zealand have up until now, never had enough population or demand for international goods to fill the inbound aircraft cargo holds. Obviously there is a problem with outbound capacity due to the large production of agribusiness products in New Zealand that are exported to global markets, however, there have never been shortages of import capacity until now. The respondent mentioned that it is a huge positive for the industry because it suggests that the directional imbalance has been solved between imports and exports. Two factors are likely to have caused this

capacity shortage inbound and they include: a rise in e-commerce and a large growth in the manufacturing sector in the South Island. In terms of e-commerce, people are now buying many more products direct, online and having them delivered to their door from

international markets. This has meant that more and more products are now being transported via air freight, filling the cargo holds of inbound carriers. The manufacturing sector on the other hand has meant that far more componentry is being imported in through CHC, the manufacturing takes place and then the finished products are exported out of CHC. The shortage of capacity for imports is a real positive because if airlines know

that they can fill the aircraft in both directions it means that they may have the incentive to increase the number of flights and the capacity to meet the needs of the industry.

5.3.4 Christchurch International Airport initiative

All of the respondents had similar feedback in regards to their relationship with CHC. It was made clear that CHC do not have any involvement in the air freighting export process as such; however, they have shown far more interest in the process in the last five years or so. CHC were known to have solely focussed on passengers and terminal retail in previous years, but each of the respondents mentioned the airport shifting its focus more towards freight. CHC have initiated workshops in the last few years with airlines, global logistics businesses and other service providers in order to keep key stakeholders in the loop with potential changes and future objectives that CHC may have. This has also helped build relationships with airlines in order to initiate new routes and carriers, ultimately helping to increase the capacity out of Christchurch. None of the respondents had experienced any problems dealing with CHC.

The respondent did mention that they are also considering building their own cool store facility based at the CHC. CHC believe they may have to take the lead on addressing the lack of cool store space at CHC. They did state that this is very much still in discussion and not guaranteed, however, they do believe it is a big opportunity that will help the industry and the exporting process for global logistics businesses and airlines who are currently having extensive issues with cool store shortages.