Christchurch Airport

You’re standing at Christchurch Airport, about 12 kilometres northwest of the city centre in Harewood. It opened back on 18 May 1940, and ten years later became New Zealand’s first international airport. Today it’s the country’s second busiest, after Auckland, and one of only two that regularly handle the giant Airbus A380.

Because the wind here mostly comes from the north-east, with a bit from the south-west—plus those fierce nor’westers off the Canterbury plains—the airport has two main runways running in different directions. The primary one stretches over three kilometres, and there’s a shorter one for when the nor’wester blows. They even keep a third grass strip for small planes.

The big terminal upgrade you see now was finished in 2013, with the main wing opening a couple of years earlier. And unlike some airports, this one never closes—it runs 24 hours a day.