Christchurch International Airport
Facts on CHC
The airport has two runways at right angles because of the wind. The 3,288-metre main runway 02/20 lines up with the prevailing north-easterlies, while the 1,741-metre 11/29 exists for the nor'wester, Canterbury's foehn wind. A third, grass runway serves general aviation.
Source: Wikipedia
The Canterbury Association settled on the name Christchurch at its first meeting on 27 March 1848, most likely after Christ Church, Oxford, the college of association member John Robert Godley, which like the planned city had its own cathedral.
Source: Wikipedia
Many of the first colonists disliked the name and wanted the settlement called Lyttelton. The Colonists' Council resolved in 1851 to keep Christchurch anyway, because surveyors were already using it and it separated the town from the port.
Source: Wikipedia
The council picked Harewood as the site in 1935 and bought 227 hectares the next year. The airport opened on 18 May 1940, became RNZAF Station Harewood, and on 16 December 1950 was cleared as New Zealand's first international airport.
Source: Wikipedia
Since the 1950s Christchurch has been the launch point for Antarctic flights by the United States Navy, Air Force and Air National Guard and by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, under Operation Deep Freeze.
Source: Wikipedia
In July 2013 a Boeing 747SP carrying SOFIA, an airborne infrared telescope, began using Christchurch as a southern base. The city was chosen for the long runway, the favourable atmospheric conditions and the relatively empty airspace over southern New Zealand.
Source: Wikipedia
British Airways Concorde G-BOAF made the type's first visit to Christchurch on 9 April 1989, arriving from Tahiti on a world tour. Three days later, on the leg to Sydney, it lost part of its vertical stabiliser over the Tasman Sea.
Source: Wikipedia
Rebuilding the terminal took nearly four years and 200 to 400 workers a day, through some 11,000 earthquakes, and still came in on budget. Prime Minister John Key opened it on 18 April 2013; its baggage system alone runs 750 metres.
Source: Wikipedia
The airport is building the 168 MWp Kowhai Park solar farm on 400 hectares of its own land southwest of the main runway. It is planned to make about 290 GWh a year, roughly what 36,000 average New Zealand households use.
Source: Wikipedia
A total of 6,623,365 passengers travelled through in 2025, up 5.4 per cent on the year before. Christchurch is New Zealand's second-busiest airport, operates without a curfew, and is one of only two in the country that regularly handle the Airbus A380.
Source: Wikipedia