Biosecurity Info

Here is information provided by a Biosecurity Officer on ways to prepare to bring your glider into the country, and ensure you won't run into trouble bringing all sorts of unwanted stuff in. The short version is: Clean your glider and harness very thoroughly!

For those intending travel from overseas into New Zealand with their paragliding equipment there are a few things that can be done to assist in the biosecurity clearance procedures that may have the potential to save on time for the passenger. First things first, please make sure that all paragliders and sporting equipment are declared. Undeclared items can lead to a $400 infringement.

Next, since it is difficult for biosecurity officers to determine the risk contained within paragliders (seeds, plant material, insects etc), it is common for the paraglider to be held back until all flights have been cleared, allowing staff to fully open the paraglider, lift up the wing and inspect/clean out all cells, vacuum any debris etc. This can lead to delays of hours on a busy day. My recommendations would be for owners intending to travel with their equipment, is to take a video (Of which a date stamp or information on the video will be required) of them cleaning their equipment before travel. This is ok a few days prior to travel so long as we can be confident/assured the equipment has not been used since. Quarantine Officers may then have the ability to use alternative clearance options as opposed to a full inspection/clean of the item(s) thus potentially allowing a passenger to leave the airport in a matter of minutes as opposed to hours, and of course without a $400 infringement.

Of course we cannot guarantee that providing such a video would give such clearance every time as there are numerous factors involved in border clearance that cannot be predicted or anticipated. But I am confident that this will make a big difference to many. At the very least if we still decide to inspect a canopy it will for sure be a much quicker process if it is already clean.