Kāpiti Coast Airport confirms it will close at end of November

Kāpiti Coast Airport has confirmed it will close on 30 November, a decision which the local MP has slammed as "cruel, unfair and unnecessary".A spokesperson for owners NZ PropCo said the airport will close at 7pm on 30 November, and until then would "continue to operate under its existing certificate and safety requirements".Kāpiti Aero Club said earlier today that Kāpiti Coast Airport Holdings had asked it to surrender its lease - which is in place until 2033 - on 30 November, and to vacate the land by 28 February 2027.Sounds Air chief executive Andrew Crawford told RNZ he's also been informed by the airport's chief executive it will close on 30 November.The airport, owned by NZ PropCo, had entered a conditional sale and purchase agreement that required the airport to close.Key people in aviation in the region have been talking about the potential closure for days.Ōtaki MP Tim Costley said he was really concerned about the closure date."It's really soon, particularly if they're [the aero club's] lease went well into the 20-30s from what I've heard, to suddenly being told you have now three weeks."This just seems cruel, unfair and unnecessary."Costley said there were pragmatic ways the airport could keep operating now, while the owners go through a process to sell it. He said the land was being sold for housing development, but this required a council zoning change through a public process, which was far from guaranteed."We don't need it [as housing]. We have more than 5000 houses going in across Kāpiti."The airport was needed as a critical piece of infrastructure for medical and civil emergencies, Costley said, as well as regional connectivity.In the last year, about 15 Life Flight aircraft landed at Kāpiti Coast Airport when they couldn't land in Wellington, he said.Costley said he had heard from two people who credited the airport with saving their life or partner's life in a medical emergency.Kāpiti Aero Club executive member Peter Merwood said the club was taking legal advice about the request to surrender its lease."We have a lease which gives us rights over the airport until 2033, so the question is why would we give that up, we have a legal entitlement to the land."Merwood said the closure would be a "terrible loss" for the community.The club, open since 1983, currently had 13 staff, operates a fleet of more than 10 aircraft, had 250 members and had trained hundreds of pilots who now worked in the aviation sector, he said."Today we've got on the books 50 people that are actively being trained and they might being going for a private pilot's license, a commercial pilot's license."The next nearest training areas were Feilding or Wellington, though Costley said Wellington was not suitable for all types of training due to the numbers of commercial flights flying in and out of the airport."Once an airport like Kāpiti is lost, it's gone, it'll never come back," Merwood said.