Auckland Airport bosses believe air travel will recover quickly from the pandemic, but the company also mindful of changes in people's attitudes towards travel.
Auckland Airport chief executive Adrian Littlewood told shareholders travel may change over time in terms of sustainability. Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
The company says it's not as confident as airline body IATA that global travel will fully recover by 2023, but it believes a full recovery is on the way.
Outgoing chief executive Adrian Littlewood told shareholders at their annual meeting this morning travel may change over time in terms of sustainability, but he's confident people will want to reconnect.
"There may be some change in people's attitudes towards travel. I guess the other side of that is there's still a lot of people for whom travel is an important part of their life. Whether it's visiting friends and family, business and/or high value holidays.
"So I think the the wider trends still mean that growth will return. I think the effort we need to put in is to wherever we can and as part of our new sustainability plan, is to do what we can to support the transition to new technologies, whether it be future electric aircraft or sustainable airfields."
Photo: 123RF
The company also updated shareholders on the airport's vaccination policies.
Littlewood said while a 100 percent of frontline staff (who are mandated) are vaccinated, it's strongly encouraging others who aren't covered by the mandate to get vaccinated.
But he said all new staff are mandated to be vaccinated.
Littlewood said the airport was also looking at applying the principle to contractors and partners, with some contractors coming on to its projects mandated to be vaccinated.
In other business at the meeting, shareholders re-elected Mark Binns, Dean Hamilton, Tania Simpson and Patrick Strange as directors.