Getting around AKL
New Zealand’s busiest gateway splits its passengers across two separate buildings: the International Terminal, open 24 hours since the airport opened in 1966, and the Auckland Domestic Terminal a walk away. Nothing physical joins them — no shared kerb, no shared check-in hall — so getting from one to the other means either a free bus every 15 minutes or the signed, 950-metre Green Line footpath, good for 10 to 15 minutes of fresh air past giant photos of New Zealand walking tracks. No trains call at either terminal; the AirportLink bus is the rail connection, reaching Puhinui Station — on the Southern and Eastern lines — in under 20 minutes. In 2025 the airport carried 18.9 million passengers on 28 airlines to 42 international and 23 domestic destinations — and every one of those figures is about to be reshaped by a $5.7 billion works programme that replaces the ageing domestic terminal with a 12-gate jet pier in 2029, stitched to the international building by a new indoor link.
