Departure
95%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Manapouri Airport (NZMO) serves as the aerial gateway to Fiordland National Park in New Zealand's Southland Region, operating under the marketing name Te Anau Airport Manapouri. It offers a sealed runway suitable for regional turboprop and charter traffic alongside a grass cross-runway, making it a useful and scenic destination for VFR pilots exploring the Southern Alps and fiords.
Manapouri Airport, known commercially as Te Anau Airport Manapouri, lies in the Southland Region of New Zealand's South Island and functions as the principal air gateway to Fiordland National Park, the country's largest national park and part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Site. For a simulator pilot the appeal lies in the approach itself, tracking towards a glaciated wilderness of steep fiords and peaks over 2000 metres, before landing at a relatively remote regional field that nonetheless supports scheduled and charter operations into spectacular terrain.
The airfield sits in the Southland Region of New Zealand, near the township of Te Anau and Lake Manapouri, within the area served by Queenstown Flight Information Service. It is positioned at the edge of Fiordland National Park, giving pilots a clear visual transition from farmed lowland into the mountainous, fiord-cut wilderness beyond.
Manapouri has two physical runways. Runway 08/26 is 5190 feet long, hard-surfaced and lit, providing the main strip for scheduled and charter traffic. Runway 14/32 is a shorter grass strip of 3912 feet, also lit, offering a crosswind option. The field elevation is 682 feet.
Air traffic advisory service is provided by Queenstown Flight Information Service, with AFIS available on 128 MHz. The common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) is 119.1 MHz. There is no ILS or other published instrument approach aid at the field.
There have been two airstrips in the Te Anau Basin for at least thirty years: the Waiau strip, originally owned by the Wallace County Council and later Southland District Council, and the sealed Manapouri strip, which was privately owned first by Mount Cook Airlines and then by Air New Zealand. In 2002 Air New Zealand put the Manapouri strip up for public tender, giving interested parties only a short window to bid; Southland District Council's tender of $401,000 was accepted. The move consolidated Te Anau Basin's air operations onto the single Manapouri site, with lessees at the old Waiau strip formally notified of the relocation. Long-serving staff, including Operations Manager Lee MacGillivray, who joined the aviation industry at Air Fiordland's Te Anau base in 1994, and Chief Executive Evan Pearce, a former Southern Alps ski-plane pilot and airline captain, have overseen the airport's development in the years since.
The airport now operates under the name Te Anau Airport Manapouri and continues to serve as the aerial gateway to Fiordland, supporting private charter and light aircraft movements alongside scheduled services. Ground handling is available through the airport team by prior arrangement. The airport's own weather station has been decommissioned, and current conditions and forecasts are instead published via MetService's Manapouri Aerodrome webpage. Live webcam images of the field are also made available on the airport's website. Prior permission may be required for certain services such as ground handling.