Reece

The Federal government of course is terrified at the prospect of endorsing a substantial increase in capability at KSA due to the perceived political fallout that could possibly swamp up to half a dozen key electorates, both State and Federal. Even the Federal Opposition and the NSW Coalition government specialises in tactfully avoiding the issue for the same pathetic reason.

And we don’t say pathetic lightly as a brief examination of the facts pertaining to KSA reveals a far different picture than the mandarins in Canberra and the Botany region councillors would have us believe.

Firstly, KSA is a major and vitally important commercial power house. According to the FAC, there are some 16,000 people employed directly at KSA with an estimated additional 40,000 people deriving some portion of their livelihood indirectly from the mere presence of Australia’s largest airport. What is more important though is that around 50% of those people actually live within 10km of the airport. Would the present Minister for Aviation like to guarantee these people jobs if the facility should eventually be moved elsewhere? The only council mature enough to publicly recognise where many of its constituents’ jobs come from is Sutherland Council which actively encourages further development at KSA.

Secondly, the constant, almost blind rejection of the feasibility of a 2,000m parallel runway totally refuses to take into account that this facility would actually reduce aircraft noise over the very suburbs which are most vocal whenever the subject is raised. You don’t need to be a genius to appreciate that a shift from the east west R25/07 to a north south R16 Left would eliminate many overflights over the most heavily populated areas to the east and west of KSA.

With a medium spaced 2,000m runway east of the present main north south runway, departures of short haul jets up to A320 size could be easily accommodated.

Operations for takeoff would have to be in a southerly direction while landings would be restricted to approaches made over Botany Bay landing towards the north. The reason for this would be due to the proximity of the terminals and associated high rise buildings that would immediately be beneath the flight path if approaches and departures were made from the north. This is not a great problem though, as sheer lack of concrete is presently KSA’s major deficiency. Such a runway, in the majority of weather conditions, would allow a greater degree of flexibility when combined with the present runways and boost KSA’s capacity by more than a third.

The third point is that new generation jetliners are so quiet that in many cases their approach cannot be heard over passing road traffic. Aircraft such as the BAe 146, Fokker 50, Boeing 737-300 and 767 and the Airbus A300 and A320 bear no comparison whatever to aircraft such as the 727 and DC-9 which most resident action groups naturally associate with KSA. Yet we believe that trying to discuss these matters with virtually any representative of these groups (and even the various Ministers of the day) is nearly impossible as they won’t even tolerate discussion on such matters. It is not a matter of them disagreeing with the aviation industry- they simply don’t even want to rationally discuss it, the matter is set and that’s that!

So what happens next?

Late November saw the release of a comic document entitled The Airport Needs of the Sydney Basin that amongst other things recommends the banning of all non RPT aircraft from KSA, moving commuter and corporate jet operations to Bankstown and to the development of Badgerys Creek as an alternative to KSA. On the latter, the report concludes that it would cost a mere $40m to develop the airport for commuter operations. Anybody even remotely involved in either the aviation or construction industry would find it difficult to stifle a grin at such an out of touch estimate. Our estimate is that there is a zero missing though the real objective of the one sided report, of course, is to again quell down the whole issue and produce the framework for – you guessed it, yet another report.

Apart from the obvious logic of accepting the KSA parallel runway option, Australian Aviation feels it would be both positive and timely if a well thought out plan was developed for the construction of a realistically viable airport at Badgerys Creek. However, that won’t happen as it would take substantial initial Government revenue to generate same and that is not about to be forthcoming in the present political or economic climate. Badgerys is also in the middle of nowhere, some 60km west of the CBD and totally lacking in a viable high speed transportation system linking it with virtually anywhere. To funnel commuter or even domestic jets into it without a direct high speed connection linking it with KSA, the CBD and other major Sydney metropolitan centres is tantamount to disaster for air travellers to Australia’s premier city.

KSA is now at capacity and has been for more than a year. The three domestics alone are wasting around $20m annually in fuel to endure its delays and additional fuel uplifts in anticipation of those delays. A parallel runway would not only reduce noise in real terms, it would cost a mere $300m and be operational within six years. Furthermore, there are even several companies that have already approached the FAC offering free fill with which to provide the base for such a runway. You can’t do much better than that. In the meantime, despite the FAC authorising some $252m of expenditure on KSA between its inception and 1992, the problem will become worse due to the sheer constraints of available concrete.

Mr Willis and his assistant, Mr Punch, now have what must be the umpteenth report conducted into the very same problem at the very same airport for the best part of nearly twenty years. An expectation of a new and refreshingly responsible attitude from our leaders would indeed be a great way for aviation to celebrate this Christmas.