Airways New Zealand marks 30 years of operations

Airways New Zealand is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The air navigation services provider (ANSP) was one of New Zealand’s first State Owned Enterprises and one of the first ANSPs to corporatise globally. Formerly the Civil Aviation Division of the Ministry of Transport, Airways started its new life as an SOE in April 1987.

“The move put Airways at the cutting edge of change and is something that many of our counterparts are only considering now,” CEO Ed Sims says. “Since then we have kept the skies safe and created a business success story for New Zealand.”

Minister for State Owned Enterprises Todd McClay says: “New Zealand is a small country surrounded by a lot of sea and air transport is vital to our economic growth. The Asia Pacific region in particular is experiencing significant traffic growth and Airways plays a critical role in making aviation is safe, efficient and sustainable.”

Airways is a high performing SOE, Mr McClay says. Over the past five years the organisation has nearly tripled its capital investment and quadrupled its profit, while customer charges are set to reduce by 4.7% over three years.

Airways provides services to domestic and international air traffic within New Zealand’s Flight Information Region (FIR) which totals 30 million square kilometres – one of the largest areas of sovereign airspace in the world. The organisation has also delivered training and consultancy services through its subsidiaries in over 65 countries.