Kāpiti Coast Airport closure expected under sale deal as owners meet tenants

RNZ said on 11 November (NZ time) that it understood the airport would announce that day that it is shutting, and that people acting for owner NZ PropCo were meeting tenants at Paraparaumu. RNZ said the airport could close at the end of November. No closing date had been confirmed publicly when this story was written.

An airport spokesperson told the NZ Herald that the owners' sale agreement is conditional and requires the airfield to shut before the purchaser gets possession. The buyer has not been named. NZ PropCo has owned the airport since 2019 and has said it is not sustainable as an airfield.

Sounds Air, which flies to Nelson and Blenheim, is now the only scheduled airline at Kāpiti. Air Chathams ended its Auckland route in July 2026, the Herald reported. Neither report says what will happen to existing Sounds Air bookings or to tenants' leases.

The land faces a longer process. Land Information New Zealand told the Herald that the holding company, Kāpiti Airport Holdings Limited, had asked it to begin its duties under section 40 of the Public Works Act 1981, under which land no longer needed for a public work must first be offered to the original owners or those who succeed them. Any change from airport to residential zoning would go through the Kāpiti Coast District Council's planning process. Local MP Tim Costley told the Herald he would oppose rezoning and knew of an offer of about NZ$50 million to buy the site and keep it running as an airport.