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Christchurch

Christchurch (ICAO: NZCH; IATA: CHC) is New Zealand's second largest airport and the primary arrival point for air travellers visiting the South Island. It is also the main forward base of operations for the flight programme to McMurdo Sound in Antarctica.

It has three runways: runway 02/20, a parallel grass runway 02/20 Grass, and the cross runway 11/29. As in real life, runway 02/20 receives the vast majority of traffic in the online world. Runway 11/29 is not used in heavy traffic situations due to a significant misalignment of that runway between the FS9 and FSX sceneries.

RNAV Arrivals

Runways 02 and 20 are equipped with ILS and all of the NZCH arrival procedures feed into these approaches. All STARs are now RNAV only. Pilots unable to fly the RNAV arrivals should indicate this in their flight plan, and inform controllers on initial contact in order to receive vectors to the ILS approach.

Flights from Noumea can expect to be assigned one of the KIDAL arrivals depending on the active runway:

• Noumea → Christchurch Runway 02: KIDAL TWO ALFA (KIDAL2A).
• Noumea → Christchurch Runway 20: KIDAL THREE BRAVO (KIDAL3B).

All of these arrivals cross over the Southern Alps, the most mountainous section of the entire Oceania region, and there are a series of descent steps specified as part of the arrivals (see the charts above). Aircraft on these arrivals should descend to the ATC cleared level via the published steps.

Departures

Flights departing Christchurch for overseas destinations can expect to be assigned one of the following departures depending on the active runway.

• Christchurch Runway 02: DIVSU ONE ALFA (DIVSU1A) Oceanic Transition.
• Christchurch Runway 20: ALBAD ONE ALFA (ALBAD1A) Oceanic Transition.