Auckland Airport wins Routes Asia Marketing Award in Manila

New Zealand's Auckland Airport was announced as the overall winner of the Routes Asia edition of the Routes 2016 Marketing Awards which were formally announced last night during the Networking Evening event which took place at The Blue Leaf Filipinas in Manila, Philippines.

Speaking just after receiving the highly regarded accolade for the first time, Peppy Adi-Purnomo, South East Asia and India Development Manager, Auckland Airport said: “It means a lot for us that our airline partners supported us and nominated us through the awards process. All the work we do is about ‘win win’ and developing a scenario that the business case to airlines work to deliver sustainable air services.

“It means a lot for us that our airline partners supported us and nominated us through the awards process. All the work we do is about ‘win win’ and developing a scenario that the business case to airlines work to deliver sustainable air services.”

Peppy Adi-Purnomo
South East Asia & India Development Manager, Auckland Airport

"We are not interested about short-term success but always look at the long-term and developing a relationship that is right for the airline and also for us at the airport," he added.

Auckland Airport witnessed strong passenger growth in 2015, with international traffic increasing by 7.1 percent and this has continued into the summer 2016 season with new carriers and new routes helping to add 550,000 additional international seats into the market. In total, seven new airlines have either commenced or announced future service in the past 12 months, including: Air Asia X, China Eastern Airlines, American Airlines, and United Airlines.

The New Zealand airport has also undertaken significant market research on how to shift Chinese visitation from low-value groups to higher-value travellers, drive regional dispersal of Chinese visitors within the country and encourage Chinese visitation spread across the year.

On the eve of this year’s Routes Asia, Auckland was among the most talked about destinations in the world. Like any other day an Emirates Airline Airbus A380 was poised to touch down at Auckland Airport, but unlike previous arrivals via Australia, this flight on March 2, 2016 had arrived direct from the airline’s Dubai International Airport, marking the introduction of the world’s longest scheduled passenger air service.

Auckland Airport estimates this new service will provide an extra 194,180 seats per annum on the Dubai route and deliver an additional $125 million every year to the New Zealand economy.

“This new flight will help to significantly increase the number of people travelling between New Zealand and Europe, India and of course the Middle East. It will help to further stimulate travel, trade and tourism with these important and growing markets,” explained Adi-Purnomo.

The awards, which are voted exclusively by airlines, are split into four categories comprising of three airport categories, split by size and a destination category for the best destination marketing campaign by a tourism authority.

Auckland Airport was also named as the winner in the 4 million - 20 million passengers category, while Guam's A.B. Won Pat International Airport was honoured in the under 4 million passengers category; Changi Airport Group in the over 20 million passengers category and Tourism Australia in the Destination Marketing category.

Created in 1997 to recognise excellence in airport marketing as rewarded by airlines, the annual Routes awards provide the airline community with the chance to have their say as to which airport they think provides the best overall marketing services to them.

“We’re delighted to mark the achievements of all of our nominated airports and destinations in the second regional heat of the Routes Marketing Awards. Year-on-year we are impressed by the calibre of the submissions,” said Christopher Eve, Senior Vice President, UBM Asia who presented the awards to all the winners and highly commended airports.

As overall winner of tonight’s awards, Auckland Airport will be automatically shortlisted for their category at the World Routes Awards in Chengdu, China on September 26, 2016.

A respected panel of judges made up of senior members of the airline network planning community reviewed airline nominations and submissions from the nominated airports in order to determine the winners.

The panel consisted of the following experts:

Dilhan Haradasa, Group Head of Network & Regulatory Affairs, AirAsia Group
Simon Kleinsorge, Manager Network Planning - International Networks, Air New Zealand
Alexander Lao, Vice President, Commercial Planning, Cebu Pacific Air
Michael Burke, Assistant Director Commercial, Hong Kong Airlines
Seb Mackinnon, Head of Airport Partnerships, Jetstar Group

The full list of companies shortlisted under each award category were as follows: