Airports, Councils & Governments – Qld Style

A Decision is Expected in December but the Winner Will Get No Government Funding or Risk Underwriting.

The Whitsunday Council Had Expensively Upgraded Booming Proserpine’s Rather Tired Terminal Facility in 2006, Primarily to Handle the Two Daily Brisbane Jet Services Provided by Jetstar and Virgin Blue. Council, Which is Not on the Developers’ Shortlist and Which Previously Had Proserpine’s Sale to Laguna Quays Overturned in Court, Could End Up Being Stuck With an Idle Upgraded Airport, or Simply Evicted, and Will Likely Seek Compensation.

Many Locals Oppose an International Airport, With Some Tourism Operators Fearing an Lcc Entrant – the Most Likely Prospect – Would See High Spending Bowen Basin Minerals Boom Catchment Dwellers Taking Their Holidays Overseas. Proserpine Supporters, Reportedly Including Most Bowen Ratepayers, Also Claim That a Potential Mineral Deposit Runs Under Both Laguna Quays and Proserpine, Which Might Favour a New Site Just North of Proserpine. Whatever the December Outcome, Tears Will Result.

A New Factor is That the Queensland Government Will Sell Its Bacl Stake and Privatise Mackay and Cairns Airports, Ostensibly to Build Hospitals. Quitting Brisbane Effectively Removes Any Conflict Over Flightpaths and Curfews, Which the Proposed and Recently Much Expanded Government Instigated Northshore Hamilton Precinct Will Surely Spawn, as Government Also Owns Part of That Land.

Selling Mackay Also Removes Any Laguna Quays Conflict, and May Reduce Mackay’s Sale Value.

Government Airport Assets Stand Around $800 Million at Face Value, but if, as Some Predict, Cairns Comes Down to a Final Race Between Macquarie Airports and Dubai Inc, It Alone Could Conceivably Fetch That Amount. Hobart, With Only One-third the Passenger Throughput, Was Sold Last December to a Macquarie Led Consortium for $350 Million.

Parallel Schedules

Pre Deregulation There Was Endless Criticism of the ‘heavenly Twins’ Flying at Best 10 Minutes Apart or Even Running Alternate Days.

However, Nearly 20 Years on, Some Regional Ports Still Suffer Parallel Schedules.

Rockhampton, With an Average of 11 Flights Per Day to Brisbane, Sees Four of the Eight Qantas Group Flights Depart Over a Late Morning Period of Just 80 Minutes, With Big Gaps Either Side.

And Each Day a Jetstar A320, Virgin 737 and Qantaslink Q400 Depart Brisbane Within Five Minutes of Each Other, Are All on the Ground in Rocky Together, and Then Arrive Back in Brisbane Less Than 10 Minutes Apart. Delays, Traffic and the Elements Can See Them Operate in Any Order and, Whilst the Jets Briefly Cruise Over 100kt Faster Than the Q400, That Turboprop’s Flexibility and Ability to Use Both Runways at Each End (While Brisbane’s Runway 14/32 Remains Open) Sees It Occasionally Record Shorter Block Times.

C Comes After E?

Bombardier’s on-again 110-130 Seat Cseries Jet Will Need to Offer a Fair Edge Over the Now Established Embraer E-jets to Gain Traction.

Weight and Fuel Burn Factors Demand New Generation Materials and Engines to Beat the E-jets. Conventional Wisdom Has It That the Last 10 Per Cent of Performance Improvements Carries a Disproportionately High Percentage of the Risk and Development Costs, So Finding the ‘edge’ May End Up Costing Money and Time.

Airframe Wise, the E-jet Uses Proven and Conventional Metal Technology and Minimal Moulded Sections, Enabling Maintenance and Repair Simplicity, Especially in More Remote Areas, and by 2013 Will Be Very Well Established With the Initial ‘bugs’ Long Ironed Out.

With Bombardier Using New Technology to Get Ahead, We May Have a Rerun of an Earlier Scenario of the Then Basic and Easily Repairable Hs (Nee Avro) 748 Versus the Revolutionary Fokker F27. The F27 Won the Sales Battle Handsomely, So if History Repeats Itself Today the Cseries Could Do Well – if It Can Navigate the Pitfalls of Current American Airline Pain and Oil Price Spikes to Find a Launch Customer Base.

More Pilot Woes

Rumours That to Meet Growing Demand Some Large Overseas Carriers Will Be Forced to Lift Retirement Ages to 60 or Above, Would See a Useful Source of Highly Experienced Pilots for Local Flying Work Dry Up.

Returning Australian Pilots, Once They Turn 55, Often Fill Many Slots Including Regional Airline, Bizjets or Heavy Charter or Mine Work, Where There Can Be 40,000 Hours on the Flightdeck. A Also Few Job Share Positions, Creating a Pleasant Lifestyle and Surge Capacity for Their Employers.

If That Source of Experience Dries Up, That’ll Be Yet Another Gap to Fill. O