The design and costings for Rotorua Airport's $4.9 million upgrade are expected to go to the board for approval to be tendered out within the next month, chief executive Mark Gibbs says.
"We're looking at getting under way with the fire station and rescue operations by mid- 2017, and the terminal upgrades by the back end of the year," he said.
Mr Gibbs said the fire station no longer met seismic codes and the core airport infrastructure dated back to 1963.
"It's incredibly important that Rotorua puts itself out there in the best possible way," he said, noting the large numbers of tourists serviced by the airport.
Mr Gibbs was brought up in Rotorua and relocated back recently before applying for the airport role. He has 28 years' experience in governance, management, finance and strategic planning and was previously general manager of global property and facilities at Fonterra.
One of his aims has been to bring back to life the Airport Master Plan, originally prepared in 2010-11, and ensure it is commercially viable, relevant and supportive of the city's overall economic development plan.
One key objective is to make better use of the 100ha associated with the airport precinct to create an integrated travel and transport hub. The precinct operations currently include helicopter, rafting and rental car businesses.
"We will be adopting a far more structured approach to attracting general aviation users," he said.
Mr Gibbs said the airport was seeing a growth in non-scheduled air movements, including private jets with high net worth independent travellers. The airport will also be working much more closely with Air New Zealand to ensure that major events are properly serviced.
"Rotorua has a very robust events calendar. There are limitations with the scheduled Air NZ flights so we will be working [with them] to build a charter schedule to ensure major events have capacity to ensure people can come and go without constraints."
Airport chairman Peter Stubbs confirmed the facility would be doing everything it could to ensure Air NZ's Rotorua operations were successful.
"That means we're going to take a much more collaborative and proactive approach when our business events folks identify opportunities for conferences."
Mr Stubbs said he believed the airport could become "a significantly better gateway" to the city.
"Town and cities that have an airport have a strong identity - a window to the world," he said. "We really want this to be a community asset that the people of Rotorua are proud of."