Palmerston North Airport is getting ready for its massive $40m $ makeover

It has been serving travellers for 30 years, but now the terminal at Palmerston North Airport is gearing up for a much needed makeover. The $40m project has been seven years in planning and CE David Lanham said he’s “very, very excited” to see work finally begin this week: “It’s a line in the sand and we can now progress with the plan.” Over the next two years, the building will be transformed into a new transport hub for the region. Lanham said the redevelopment has three driving factors - the current building has a poor seismic resilience of just 35% of the national building standard; there needs to be room for any introduction of regional screening of passengers and bags; and it has to be able to cater for an increase in future passengers numbers.<br/>“Pre-Covid we were hitting the capacity of the terminal with just over 700,000 passengers. That’s not a driver right now or in the immediate future but this is obviously an infrastructure project with a 10-to-20 year horizon in terms of what we can get out of the new facility.” Travellers will soon begin to see changes, including the building of a temporary terminal between now and Christmas. A large marquee structure will be erected at the Railway Road end over the valet parking area.<br/>