Auckland International Airport
Facts on AKL
Auckland's airport code AKL is a straightforward abbreviation of the city name, but the airport itself grew out of a much smaller predecessor, Mangere Aerodrome, home to the Auckland Aero Club from 1928 before the site was redeveloped into today's international airport, which officially opened with a grand air pageant in January 1966.
Source: Wikipedia
Auckland is named for George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784-1849), an English Whig who was three times First Lord of the Admiralty and Governor-General of India from 1836 to 1842, where his decision to invade Afghanistan ended in catastrophe.
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Auckland's name was a thank-you. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Eden gave William Hobson a commission to sail for the East Indies; when Hobson founded New Zealand's new capital in 1840 he named it Auckland after his patron. Mount Eden carries the family name too.
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Auckland is one of only two airports in New Zealand able to handle the double-decker Airbus A380 (the other being Christchurch), and despite relying on a single runway it is the busiest single-runway airport in the whole of Oceania.
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The international terminal, built in 1977, was named the Jean Batten Terminal in 1987 after news reached New Zealand that the aviator had died. Her death on Mallorca in November 1982 had gone unnoticed until a journalist uncovered it five years later.
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Jean Batten learned to fly in London after her father refused to pay for lessons. In October 1936 she flew a Percival Gull from England to New Zealand in a little over 11 days, an absolute record that stood for 44 years.
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Much of Auckland's runway sits on land reclaimed from the Manukau Harbour. The single strip, 05R/23L, is 3,635 m (11,926 ft) long, is Cat IIIb capable in the 23L direction, and handles about 45 aircraft movements per hour.
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The first flight out of the new Mangere airport was an Air New Zealand DC-8 bound for Sydney in November 1965, months before the official opening. Qantas began the first scheduled Boeing 747 service from Auckland on 8 December 1972.
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Each international pier has a tomokanga, a carved Maori gateway, in its arrivals area, accompanied by a recorded karanga welcoming arrivals to New Zealand. Pier A's was installed in 1994 and Pier B's when that pier opened in 2009.
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The main access road, George Bolt Memorial Drive, honours George Bolt (1893-1963), who flew New Zealand's first air mail in 1919, set a 6,500 ft altitude record the same year, and later served as chief engineer of TEAL, the airline that became Air New Zealand.
Source: Wikipedia