The NSW Government is looking for a new regional airline to replace the cancelled REX Airlink services.
The fundamental questions are being overlooked amid all the hand wringing.
Is it viable to fly tiny rural commuter services to Sydney Airport? No. Which is why Airlink is broken.
Will any small flights continue to use Sydney Airport indefinitely? No. The airport doesn’t envisage flights of less than 72 seats operating there within the medium term.
Will the NSW and Federal Govts build a new airport within the Sydney basin close to motorway links? The chances are similar to winning Lotto.
Will the NSW and Federal Govts persist with the fantasy that a suitable airport can be built outside the Sydney Basin? Probably. Goulburn or Newcastle sound perfect for convenient flights from say Coonamble. In fact Coonamble could make a really, truly good second Sydney Airport.
Will idiots continue to formulate planning and infrastructure policies in Macquarie Street? For sure.
Is the quest for replacement air services to small rural centres sanctimonious nonsense? Of course.
Everyone from the major airlines through the airport owning companies and the politicians and bureaucrats responsible for aviation policy would like small rural services to do the decent thing and go away and die, now, and without fuss.
3 Comments
Ben, I think your last paragraph is correct but I believe one of the reasons is our misuse of airport assets. Two things:
1. There is a strange animal lurking in the suburbs of our capital cities called a GA Airport. They were originally training airfields with a hybrid ATC service designed to foster pilot decision making while providing an ATC safety net to regulate where necessary. They were once called secondary airports, now GA Airports, but whatever the name the airspace assigned to them has always had a unique set of characteristics at odds with “normal” airspace procedures. This prevents full use being made of them as reliever airports for our capital cities because levels of safety are lower and fare paying passengers require better. Everywhere else in the world, and Australia, where smaller airports exist they have become combined training and commercial airports as are Coolangatta, Maroochydore, Coffs Harbour, Tamworth and so on. The GA Airports traditional lack of a modern instrument approach is nowadays not an issue as all are within the terminal areas of the local radar approach control unit. If for instance Archerfield in Brisbane was allowed to become an airport, instead of an airfield, build a terminal, attract some smaller country airlines and set up an inter-airport transport link, costs would drop and accessibility skyrocket.
2. Should this not be possible, though I believe everything is, then alternatively our major airports should use some of the acres of unused taxiway that exists when particular runway directions are in use. This becomes a problem during low visibility which is why I favour the first option. Special VFR, however, can often be utilised for small aircraft provided the ANSP is willing to work at the problem.
Its all about making the best of what you have available which arguably we do not.
Cheers geoff
Geoff,
I think this is as good a time as any to urge serious consideration of your second suggestion in particular, although I don’t see this getting up at Sydney or Melbourne.
But at the moment anything that argues for procedural efficiency more than additional infrastructure spending has a natural advantage.
It is just a personal observation, but it seems to me that the non-aviation development of Archerfield, Bankstown and Moorabbin airports make a useful future contribution to relieving the problems of rural or secondary access to the major airports of each city unlikely. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong.
I’m not involved in GA, but I’m very aware that current developmental policies seem likely to drive it further into the country, compromising the viability of a sector that is a fundamental part of the food chain of air transport in terms of skills and training, not just ‘fun’.
What a tragedy Hoxton Park didn’t become a Q400 operation. Right on the M7 and able to compete with Sydney Airport because the legal protections given to that monopoly were framed only in terms of a second jet airport in the Sydney basin and never envisaged a competitive high speed turbo-prop alternative.
Sydney Airport Community Forum (SACF ) Inc
MEDIA RELEASE
2 December 2008
With the Federal Minister for Transport today formally opening the discussion as to where Sydney’s Second Airport should be located, the peak community body believes the site selection investigations should be much quicker this time around.
Sydney Airport Community Forum (SACF) Inc is the peak community body representing airport and airport noise community organisations across the Sydney Basin and beyond. It was formed by former Liberal MP for Lowe, Paul Zammit, who believed a true peak community body ought exist, to represent the disparate groups spread out across the region. (SACF Inc should not be confused with the Howard government’s ministerially hand-picked committee of a similar name that was not representative of the communities affected.)
SACF Inc Chair Graeme Harrison said “When Badgerys Creek was put forward by the previous government, we undertook our own independent EIS, using experts in each field, but were not as constrained as the government’s EIS contractors. Contrary to the legislative requirement, the government’s EIS did not consider ‘all prudent and feasible alternatives’ but only looked at possible orientations of the runways on the land the Feds had already purchased at Badgerys. Our EIS looked at the Mann and earlier studies of all possible airport sites, and we did a proper environmental and aviation issues ranking, based on the then-updated circumstances of each such site. And it is true that Richmond, Holsworthy, Bankstown and other historical airport sites are too close to moderate population centres. However, two sites stood out – they were the ones constructed during WW2 as the alternative landing strips in case Kingsford Smith Airport (KSA) had been bombed. Both are in the “near Southern Highlands”, one at Wilton and one at Darkes Forest. Each would affect only a few hundred people, as opposed to a million or more, so would allow a close-to-Sydney site yet with 24-hour operations. Moreover, both are right on existing expressway and high-capacity rail links.”
“However, Darkes Forest has one issue – the risk of wind sheer in strong Easterlies. So we conducted a very detailed comparison of Wilton to Badgerys. First stage expansion of either Wilton or Badgerys would be to parallel runways, which then prohibits the use of complex curved flightpaths to avoid specific population centres. With Badgerys that meant a whole lot of population centres from Liverpool to Penrith to Katoomba needed to be flown over. With Wilton it meant very few hamlets would be affected. In all we found that 40-times fewer people would be affected at Wilton, compared to Badgerys. And the government’s own EIS found that continued expansion of KSA+Bankstown would affect 15+ times more people than Badgerys. In short, Wilton would affect roughly 200x fewer people than continued expansion of KSA+Bankstown.”
“Our Alternative EIS for Badgerys is the first publication (1999) listed at http://users.tpg.com.au/plingar/Pubsacfi.htm – This alternative EIS was also provided to Jackie Kelly and other Liberals whose electorates were to be adversely affected by Badgerys, and the facts relative to a site like Wilton was used to kill the Badgerys project in the Party Room of the previous government.” Minister Albanese has also previously cited Wilton as a possible site, relying upon our comparative study.”
Dick Tanner, VP of SACF Inc said “We really have to consider Wilton properly. Our forebears actually knew what they were doing by selecting it as the alternative site for KSA in the 1940s. It is in land reserved for water catchment, so there are very few houses, yet it is entirely downstream of the dams, with only one open creek used for carrying water that would need to become an enclosed pipe, which is little cost in the scheme of things. Moreover, we have to remember that while Wilton is within the water-catchment basin it is on very high ground and easily disperses the air pollution of an airport, and has far fewer days of fog than Badgerys.”
Mr Harrison continued “Wilton should be included for consideration in any proper EIS, and other likely sites such as Darkes Forest ought be compared as well. Another short-listed site – this one outside the 100km ring should be selected, in case Macquarie Airports is too hard to negotiate with for any closer site, given the former government gave SACL the first option to manage any new airport within 100km. However, we have to get away from the idea of politicians citing their own favourite ones, such as Max Moore-Wilton’s suggestion of Richmond when the matter was up for final decision by Cabinet. Wilton is only slightly farther from the CBD than Badgerys, but is equivalent in terms of travel time. Moreover, far fewer houses have been built in the vicinity, unlike Badgerys. Also, the M5 and Sydney-Melbourne rail line pass within 2km of the site, saving billions in new infrastructure. All we need is the will to go ahead, and build a second airport.”
“Then, we believe, Sydney should adopt the Washington DC model, where Immigration and Customs are relocated to the new airport, leaving the one closer to downtown for short-haul domestic flights. That would allow the people of regional NSW to fly in to Sydney for meetings or to visit a specialist, flying in and out on the same day. Whereas if you are about to embark on a 10-20 hour long-haul international flight, you would be less worried about having to catch a train to the larger airport, as has been typical required at Heathrow and Gatwick for decades.”
Contact:
Graeme Harrison 0411 680666 or prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu