Relocation of Customs' air cargo inspection facility

The New Zealand Customs Service's air cargo inspection facility will be relocating to new premises on 28 November 2009.  

The new premises are located at 21 Tom Pearce Drive (corner of Tom Pearce and George Bolt Memorial Drive — formerly occupied by Regency Duty Free) at Auckland Airport. This facility will include the export cargo x–ray.  

Phone numbers will change, but at this time the new numbers are unavailable. The current air cargo contact numbers will be in use for a period after the relocation.  

There will be a transition period while Customs' air cargo x-ray (CAB 2000) is relocated to the new examination facility. Alternative arrangements are being made to ensure that there will not be disruption to screening activity and delays. The targeting centre messaging mechanism will be constantly updated during this transitional period.  

The current facility at the Airport Freight Centre will cease operation with the last day of business on 27 November 2009.  It is intended that there not be any disruption to screening activity with the new screening facility commencing the next day.  

The new facility will have Customs located alongside the cargo transport operators (Air New Zealand and Menzies Aviation) and provides for improvements for Customs' export cargo risk screening operation.  

Unlike the current facility, the new site will have drive-through capability. This improvement will provide a more efficient screening process. There will be no risk to vehicle drivers with the x–ray only screening the cargo bed and not the vehicle cab. Entry is through the cargo transport operators' precinct on George Bolt Memorial Drive (see traffic management map below).

Customs Release issue seven, dated 18 September 2009, outlined how Customs is interacting with export air cargo.  

Please note that it is Customs’ intention to do any x–ray compliance checking at the point where cargo is about to be accepted by the cargo transport operators. This means that for cargo that is consolidated before arriving at a cargo transport operator's premises, the whole consolidation will be x–rayed rather than individual consignments.

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