Philip Chandler talks to local operators in the second of a two-part series.
With a function in Queenstown this week celebrating 70 years of Milford flightseeing, it’s amazing to think a proposal to ban it was presented just five years ago.
During the depths of Covid-19 in July, 2021, the Milford Opportunities Project (MOP), commissioned by the last government, launched radical plans to scrap the airfield and ban cruise ship visits.
Those threats were only removed by the current government 13 months ago.
MOP maintained the airstrip was in a poor state, but operators and the wider tourist industry argued flightseeing was not only a visitor drawcard but reduced Milford Rd traffic congestion and was vital if the road was cut off.
The threat was also untimely as operators had spent millions on larger planes — meaning fewer flights — which were also much quieter than their predecessors.
Queenstown-based Milford Sound Scenic Flights owner Mark Quickfall, who also has a chopper fleet, says when the Department of Conservation issued concessions to land in what is a national park, operators committed to upgrading their aircraft.
They also volunteered flight paths "to mitigate the impact on other park users".
Quickfall, who also chairs Destination Milford Sound which was formed to engage with the MOP project as one voice, says it took six years for those concessions to be issued.
Veteran local aviator Jules Tapper, who once ran the former Mount Cook Group’s Queenstown flightseeing division, says "the fleet that’s currently flying is probably amongst the most modern in the world".
He says Twin Otters in former times "led the race to get a quieter aeroplane".
Local Air Milford owner Hank Sproull first introduced the revolutionary Cessna Caravan turboprop aircraft in 2005 after securing a $1.25 million loan from UDC.
It carried 12 passengers, double other planes’ capacity, was "very quiet and very safe", and offered good viewing.
"They present a product to tourists that is really, really appealing."
Glenorchy Air chief executive and Queenstown-Milford Users Group chair James Stokes agrees with Tapper "we’ve got a really capable, really impressive fleet among the operators, and I always make the point Glenorchy Air has the most modern out of everybody".
He says closing Milford’s airfield would have made his business unviable.
"I think there was an element of it being so ridiculous and so badly done you either kind of forged on hoping for the best or stopped.
"We chose to kind of keep our recovery plan going, knowing we had valuable assets if it all went wrong."
"[Owner] Ministry of Transport does have a programme to improve things, and having some toilets and potentially a little pilots’ room is part of that.
"Our landing fees have just been put up to pay for some of that upgrading — they’re quite a lot, so we hope we get a return on that."
Stokes notes Queenstown-based light planes are often subject to delays on a busy airfield, partly due to very restrictive airspace rules.
"You can literally have a mountain between you and another operator but because you’re not separated by enough distance, it’s still not legal [to fly]."
He accepts plans for taxiway alongside the main runway will be some help, along with relocating choppers to the north of that runway and light planes to the south.
However, he says, "there’s only so much space in the cookie jar".
Despite modern aircraft allowing more flying days, Milford’s notorious weather still makes flightseeing one of Queenstown’s most weather-dependent tourist attractions.
Due to wetter and windier than normal weather last spring and early summer, Stokes says in the 12 months until early April "we were sitting around a 48% success rate".
