Air Milford owner Hank Sproull said he had been flying into Milford Sound for more than 40 years and, in that time, the settlement had got shabby.
Little to nothing had changed there since the 1970s, he said.
Walkways and side tracks were so overgrown local operators had to cut back vegetation that had fallen over the tracks, there was rubbish lying around and weeds everywhere.
Thousands of people a day poured in to the settlement and it was "... just not up to the expectations of what people should be receiving at Milford".
Department of Conservation (Doc) workers used to maintain the tracks in the settlement but that no longer happened.
"Now it’s a disgrace."
The small airport, which sometimes handled 800 tourists a day, had barely changed since he started flying.
"There’s no toilet. None. There is not really a terminal. They’ve resealed it and put a few fences around it but apart from that it is still the same as it looked in 1952.
"People come in and they say, ‘where’s the toilet?’ I say, ‘sorry’. I feel absolutely, absolutely disgusted because there’s no toilets at the airport.
"So they have to run into the bushes or hold on until we can get them up to the cafe or hold on on the bus until they get down to the dock. It happens every day."
Parking was a problem at times and some days there was "not one spare park in the place".
"It’s absolutely chocker".
Work needed to be done to improve the overall look of the village, he said.
"The government need to take their head out of their butt and have a look at this and realise, you know, tourist resorts in New Zealand need to be looked after."
Overseas, national parks were well managed.
"If you go to the States and go to Yosemite or Yellowstone, there’s park rangers over there administering the place, and they can put 10,000 people a day through Yellowstone because I’ve been there and seen it, and it all works because it’s managed. But here, it’s not managed. It’s disgraceful."
Milford Sound Tourism Development Ltd oversees the infrastructure of the settlement, which is on land in a national park, administrated by Doc.
The airport is owned by the government, which delegates responsibility to the Ministry of Transport, which has contracted Invercargill Airport to operate it.
Mr Sproull said it was bureaucracy "gone crazy" and work needed to be done.
"This is not what we want to have for international tourists visiting here. This needs to be upgraded. We are definitely back in the ’70s."
A Ministry of Transport spokesperson said it was aware of feedback about amenities at Milford Sound airport and was working with its partners.
In June, the government announced an investment of $8.2million funding from the international visitor levy to support conservation and tourism in Milford Sound.
Doc Milford Sound lead Grant Tremain said visitor numbers were above pre-Covid-19 levels of more than a million tourists a year and work was being done to support infrastructure and service providers to improve and develop facilities.
Mr Tremain said additional overflow parking had been created, with a shuttle service for visitors, and Doc had been working to improve parking for boaties and others.
Visitors should be prepared to take away all rubbish with them and should take a bus to the village rather than their own vehicles, he said.
Milford Sound Development Ltd chief executive Haylee Preston said Milford was in its peak visitor period and acknowledged carparking could be challenging at this time of year.
It had been "implementing solutions", including extending one of the carparks to create additional spaces for cars and campervans and operating a free park-and-ride service during the 10 busiest days over the public holiday period to help manage visitor flows.
There were a limited number of rubbish bins in the village as part of its sustainability policy, and the visitors should take out of the national park what they brought in, she said.
She was not aware of any issues with overgrown tracks but would be happy to look at any concerns.
