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Auckland Airport has expanded its leadership team, with the creation of the new senior executive role of general manager strategic infrastructure planning and transformation.
According to the airport, the role will co-ordinate infrastructure planning, capital investment and aeronautical forecasting, including master planning and sustainability.
Auckland’s current general manager of corporate services and acting company secretary Mary-Liz Tuck has been appointed to the new role, and a search to find a replacement for her current role is now underway. She will commence in her new position on 7 June.
The airport has also opted to expand the role of Scott Tasker, its general manager aeronautical commercial, to include customer strategy and standards across its terminals, lounges, transport services, retail, property, and call centre.
Tasker will engage the newly-expanded role, dubbed general manger customer and aero commercial, also from 7 June.
Auckland Airport chief executive Carrie Hurihanganui said the changes mark a “renewed vision” for the airport.
“As aviation recovers and we ramp up our infrastructure development program, we want to ensure that we are focused on the customer experience every step of the way,” she said.
“With our long-term planning horizons and as we kick-start our infrastructure development program, we want to ensure we’re in the best position possible to deliver for the next 20 years of travel at Auckland Airport.
“Scott brings a wealth of experience working with airlines and customers, and I look forward to working with him as we welcome travellers back to Auckland Airport.
“Mary-Liz has played a key role in Auckland Airport’s recovery through the pandemic and I’m excited to work with her in her new role leading infrastructure strategy and transformation as our organisation steps forward into the 2023 financial year and beyond.”
Last month, Australian Aviation reported that Auckland Airport saw a 14.8 per cent drop in passengers in March 2022 from March 2021, the decrease driven by falling domestic passenger numbers amid Omicron outbreak fears.
A total of 426,937 passengers passed through Auckland in March this year, as opposed to the 500,944 travellers that did so one year earlier.
Despite a 331 per cent increase in international passengers over the same period, in light of easing international travel restrictions, domestic passengers passing through Auckland, the largest airport in the country, fell by 34.5 per cent year-on-year.
While at that time, strict international border rules were in place, New Zealand had no domestic travel restrictions in place in March 2021.
The airport noted that an Omicron outbreak throughout the nation in February and March impacted on its domestic passenger numbers and that numbers were increasing steadily by the last week of March.
