Dunedin resident Craig Buist travelled to the town last weekend hoping to see about 12 floatplanes, including a restored 1946 Grumman Widgeon.
Instead, he was surprised to hear the gathering had been canned.
"We are just two of many visiting people that travelled a great distance to see these fantastic aircraft," he said.
He understood Doc had banned the visiting aircraft from landing on the lake. However, it later allowed two of them to land in the water at a time, under a local seaplane operator’s concessions.
"That was basically useless for the 10-plus amphibian aircraft intending to land on the lake, letting both the aviators and people down.
"These aircraft are recreational private aircraft and the lakes are designated for recreational use."
Doc Te Anau operations manager John Lucas said Doc was made aware of a planned event involving multiple float planes intending to land in Fiordland National Park three days before the event’s scheduled date.
Aircraft activities on or over public conservation lands and waters needed to have a concession or authorisation, he said.
"This includes both commercial operations and private recreational activities as specified by Conservation Act 1987.
"One-off landing permits require 10 working days to process — longer if iwi consultation is required, as it would have been in this instance."
According to the Fiordland National Park Management Plan, only two aircraft could land there, he said.
"Our team worked extremely hard and prioritised this application, understanding its importance to the community, while still meeting our statutory requirements, and managed to turn around an approval for one additional plane that same morning.
"We understand there is a lot of disappointment ... because the event was unable to go ahead and we empathise. However, DOC is bound by the rules set out in the National Park Plan."
Despite the event being called as an informal gathering, a post on social media highlighted it.
"How many seaplanes, floatplanes and floating hulls can we get in one place at one time? Let's find out!" the post said of the event, hosted by the Fiordland Aero Club.
A pilot of one of the planes, who asked to not be named, guaranteed the gathering was informal.
"We were under the assumption [that] because we are sports and recreation only, that we could do it anyway and we thought we were just being polite [to let Doc know]."
He said there were usually hundreds of boats at the lake racing and causing pollution, "but it seems we can’t fly with our planes."
"It was very disappointing to the public."
