Aitutaki Airport Gets An Upgrade

Second officer Robert McKenzie applies power to the turbo propellers and the SAAB 340 aircraft surges down the runway, bumping over undulations in the crushed coral strip.

It was one of the last flights out of Aitutaki on a runway that first got built next to the atoll's big lagoon 60 years ago when the struggle between Japan and the Allies still hung very much in the balance.

Today, the crushed coral is under NZ$3.8 million of bitumen sealing and other improvements designed to usher in a new chapter of modern tourism for an industry that already stretches back half a century.

The new-look...Aitutaki Airport.

"It is the most major development government has been involved in, in the 38 years since self-determination," says Prime Minister Dr Robert Woonton at the opening in early November.

Rarotonga airport was a much bigger project, but funded by New Zealand. Improvements to Aitutaki airport allow for regular Boeing 737 flights, and provides emergency backup for flights from Hawaii, currently serviced by Aloha Airlines, about 6,000km north.

Woonton says the airport marks the start of a "great leap forward" for Aitutaki.

"Development is good for all of us," he says. "It reduces the poverty of lack of opportunity here and in the rest of the country." Following the economic crisis of the mid-nineties, only Aitutaki and Rarotonga have shown minimal population loss, a fact attributed to those islands' vibrant tourism industries.

It's one that stretches back half a century, at least for Aitutaki. After World War II, the atoll gained fame for its romantic part in the Coral Route, a flying boat service, operated by Tasman Empire Airways Limited, the precursor to Air New Zealand. Flights island hopped between New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, the Cooks and French Polynesia.

Passengers arriving in Aitutaki could stroll down the coral jetty, sip fruit juices and eat tomato sandwiches prepared by a ground crew that also refuelled the large Solent 44-passenger flying boat.

McKenzine banks over atoll Akaiami, otherwise known as One Foot Island. The coral jetty is still visible from the air, if long ago crumbled away underwater. Influence of aviation leaves a lengthy heritage, not just on Aitutaki. The energy and egalitarianism of the American armed forces ripped the mosquito netting right off a stuffy colonial era.

Since 1965, the country's three most influential prime ministers have all come from Aitutaki.