Tracey Roxburgh

"Scaremongering comments" made regarding Queenstown Airport was doing little to reassure the "uninitiated or fearful air traveller", one experienced pilot said yesterday.

Queenstown Airport was the busiest combined service airport in New Zealand and because landings and take-offs were "challenging" for pilots, more protections were in place to ensure passenger safety, Queenstown Airport Corporation chief executive Steve Sanderson said yesterday.

A former Invercargill woman on board the Pacific Blue flight which took off in near darkness and bad weather from Queenstown last month thought the plane would crash into the side of the Remarkables.

The contentious issue of the Queenstown Airport Corporation granting additional shareholding to Auckland International Airport Ltd would likely be dealt with by the new Queenstown Lakes District Council mayor and incoming council, Mayor Clive Geddes said yesterday.

Nine months after it opened its doors, Alpine Health and Fitness at the Queenstown Events Centre has notched up its 1000 member.

The '80s will be back in style at the Remarkables this weekend as the ski area celebrates its 25th birthday.

Queenstown Airport Corporation chairman Mark Taylor said he was "surprised" at comments made by Queenstown businessman John Martin published in the Queenstown Times last Monday, given he allegedly "offered to match" Auckland International Airport Ltd's shareholding on July 9.

People were entitled to express an opinion on the controversial sale of shareholding to Auckland International Airport Ltd (AIAL) from the Queenstown Airport Corporation (QAC), but it was time to look at the "bigger picture", Queenstown businessman Sir Eion Edgar said yesterday.

A shock late bid to overturn the controversial $27.7 million Queenstown Airport Corporation-Auckland International Airport Ltd deal and replace it with an airlines' consortium was launched by Air New Zealand last night.

Peak to Peak race champion Dougal Allan will not return to defend his title this year, giving the multisport athletes he beat last year a better chance of taking top honours in the 2010 event, being held tomorrow.

Mayor Clive Geddes says he is unrepentant about the controversy caused by the sale of Queenstown Airport shares this month, denies the issue is dividing the community and wants people to "focus on the transaction, not the process".

The discussion to date of the transaction itself in the Queenstown Airport Corporation and Auckland International Airport Ltd (AIAL) strategic alliance has been "scant", Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Clive Geddes said yesterday.

Budding young journalists, storytellers and historians from Queenstown and Arrowtown have been hard at work over the past school term - and the fruits of their labour are now on display at the Lakes District Museum.

The Queenstown Airport Corporation has called for Queenstown Chamber of Commerce chairman Alastair Porter to "step aside" from chamber deliberations on all matters relating to the airport because of "conflict of interest", and for the chamber to withdraw its "fatally flawed" member survey.