The AIPNZ is updated in accordance with international AIRAC cycles.  There are 13 AIRAC cycles per calendar year - one every 4 weeks.

Updates are provided in the form of Amendments and Supplements.

Amendments:

• Are provided every 8 weeks or 6 times per year on all even cycles (cycles 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12)
• Provide major updates to the AIP.  Amendments are suppled as a set of pages that include new pages for the AIP and pages that replace old ones.

Supplements

• Are provided every 4 weeks or 13 times per year on all cycles.
• Provides updates to the AIP that have occurred since the last amendment.  
• Is supplied as a booklet to go in the front of the AIP and should be reviewed to ensure the most current information is understood.

Important Points:

1. The AIPNZ is a living document and change occurs at different parts of the country and aviation system at different times.  Therefore amendments and supplements provide the latest updates for a given cycle, they do not include all historical updates. 
2. It is expected that the user already has an up to date AIP from which to apply updates.  If this is not the case then a new AIP contents should be purchased.  AIP contents include the whole AIP (by volumes) up to the last amendment cycle.  With this later amendments and supplements can be applied to keep the AIP up to date.
3. Updates in a supplement tend to be (not always) of a short term nature, whereas updates in the Amendments are long term or permanent changes.
4. Occasionally an additional update in the form of an Aeronautical Information Circular (AIC) is also included with the other updates.  These can be provided at any given cycle during the year.  On average the AIPNZ has 1-3 AICs per year.
5. AIP contents, binders and updates can be purchased through this online store.  Amendment Services provide a 12 month subscription to AIP updates and updates are mailed out every AIRAC cycle.

Key Dates

Under the AIRAC rules updates to the AIP (Amendments and Supplements) must be with the user 28 days in advance of them becoming effective.  Due to this and the lead times to creating them, cut-off dates for ordering the updates are set.  These cut-off dates are as follows:

Old Updates

To enable updating of the AIP after the cut-off of a particular cycle you can order the back issues for the last two cycles on this online store.  If you require updates going back further than the last two cycles then that then it is advisable to purchase a new AIP contents.