The challenge
- Christchurch Airport is New Zealand’s second busiest, open 24 hours, and usually the first lifeline for emergency response after a quake.
- From 2010 to 2013 it rode out a major earthquake sequence, including more than 30 quakes above magnitude 5.0, the standard trigger for closing an airport.
- Every hour of unnecessary downtime disrupts communities and imposes serious costs on the regional economy.
What we did
- After the first Canterbury earthquake in 2010, CIAL installed CSI sensors, starting on the runway.
- Sensor points across the airport feed a central recorder.
- Shaking is analysed instantly against airport-specific thresholds.
- Status displays immediately in the airport’s Integrated Operations Centre, with SMS and email alerts to key operational staff.
The result
- Negligible downtime across the entire Canterbury sequence.
- Clear “no action needed” and escalation criteria for controllers and operations managers.
- After the February 2011 quake, the airport moved national and international rescue and aid teams through within hours.
- It was operating fully, handling major additional traffic, within hours of the event.
- CIAL’s success was the inspiration behind Sentinel™.
“It gives us a good idea with events. We’ve created a whole response around events and the data that they give us.”— Vaughan Kirkland, Christchurch International Airport