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Whanganui Airport (NZWU) serves the town of Whanganui on the lower North Island, offering a mix of one sealed and three grass runways that make it a good example of a small New Zealand provincial field for VFR training and cross-country flying. It hosts scheduled Air Chathams services to Auckland and is home to charter and medevac operator Air Whanganui.
Whanganui Airport, known by the ICAO code NZWU, serves the town of Whanganui on the south-west coast of New Zealand's North Island. It combines a single sealed runway with three grass strips, giving visiting pilots a taste of typical provincial New Zealand flying, and it remains a working base for scheduled airline services as well as charter and training activity, which makes it a worthwhile stop for a simulator pilot exploring the region.
The airfield lies to the south of the Whanganui River, around 4 km from the centre of the town of Whanganui. The frequency listing for the field also references Ohakea, the nearby Royal New Zealand Air Force base, suggesting pilots operating in the area should be alert to military airspace and traffic in the vicinity.
Whanganui has four physical runways. The main runway, 11/29, is 4,498 ft long, has a hard surface and is lit. Runway 14/32 is a grass strip of 2,988 ft. Runway 11R/29L is a further grass strip of 2,577 ft. Runway 08/26 is the shortest, a grass strip of 2,191 ft. There is no ILS at the field.
An AFIS (Aerodrome Flight Information Service) is provided on 120.4 MHz, with a common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) of 120.2 MHz. The frequency listing also carries a reference to Ohakea control, indicating a working relationship with the nearby military control service, though no separate frequency for this is specified.
The Whanganui River, immediately to the north of the airfield, is the most prominent visual feature for pilots orienting themselves toward the field, with the town of Whanganui itself lying a further short distance beyond it.
Whanganui Airport opened in 1954, with air services beginning that November. It operated under the name Wanganui Airport until being renamed Whanganui Airport in 2016. Air New Zealand served the field for many years before announcing in September 2013 that it would withdraw its Wellington and Taupo services in December of that year; Sounds Air briefly took over the Wellington route until May 2015. Air New Zealand then withdrew its Auckland service on 31 July 2016, and the very next day Air Chathams began flying the Whanganui-Auckland route, a move credited at the time with helping to secure the airport's future. Work to resurface the asphalt runway began in October 2023, with the new surface expected to last around fifteen years.
Air Chathams operates scheduled services between Whanganui and Auckland, using ATR 72-500 aircraft, with three flights each way on weekdays and one at weekends. Air Whanganui, based at the airport, provides business charter and medevac flights around the country and has offered aviation scholarships to local high-school students since 2023. The field's single terminal serves the scheduled airline traffic, alongside general aviation movements on the grass runways.
