Christchurch International Airport Ltd. sustains that its business will not be affected by its larger opponent Auckland's $27.7 million union with Queenstown Airport to get more visitors directly to the South Island holiday, Mecca.

Auckland International Airport declared yesterday that it was buying a 24.99% interest in the Queenstown Airport for $27.7m and had a choice to boost that to 35% by next June.

The coalition collaborators said that Queenstown could anticipate an extra 176,000 tourists a year within five years, valued more than $150m to the lakes district.

AIA Chief Executive, Simon Moutter said that it was part of Auckland Airport's "sea change" in plans of marketing New Zealand as a tourist spot, as well as Queenstown with additional direct intercontinental flights there and a section of the flights via Auckland. It had in excess of 13m traveler movements in the June 2009 year.

Yesterday, CIAL revealed new statistics for the year to June 2010 disclosing a record for New Zealand's second largest airport of over 6m passengers, together with a 80,000 rise.

CIAL Chief Executive, Jim Boult said that Christchurch had guided the way as an airport developing tourism for the South Island, and it had association with a lot of local tourism groups in the South Island.