Sharp Airlines

Following the expansion into South Australia, with its first flights on April 28, and beating its own expectations with carriage of 1500 passengers in May – its first month of services there – Sharp expects to carry more than 40,000 passengers this year, doubling its previous year’s numbers.

Revenues are poised to exceed $10 million in 2008-2009, after jumping from about $2. 5 million to $5 million in 2007-2008, a heady effort for an airline with a fleet of 10 aircraft and a staff of only about 30 people.

Now it sees scope for further expansion in South Australia, as a result of the state’s emerging status as a major mining region.

Its recent move to link Adelaide to Port Augusta, as the gateway to the SA outback, is a step towards playing a greater role in an SA resources boom, which Sharp Airlines believes is “just over the horizon’’, founder and managing director Malcolm Sharp says.

The airline has been talking to four potential resources industry clients about the provision of fly-in/fly-out services for workers in exploration and mining areas, he says.

In June, Sharp Airlines dipped into the market with a service between Adelaide and the Moomba oil and gas centre in the Cooper Basin for a contractor company, and Moomba operator Santos has been assessing the airline for possible supplementary services to its National Jet arrangement.

The Victorian regional airline entered the SA market in April this year, taking over the exclusive Adelaide-Port Augusta licence and reopening the Adelaide-Mildura route previously served by O’Connor Airlines.

Malcolm Sharp, who is also the airline’s chief pilot, has stationed two 19-seat Fairchild Metroliner 23s in Adelaide for the new services, and is operating a total of 40 flights a week on the two routes – amounting to two return services each weekday.

This compares with its 54 services a week with two Metroliner IIIs linking Hamilton and the western Victorian port of Portland to Melbourne, using Essendon but also making use of Avalon near Geelong for some Portland flights.

These are flown under a contract with aluminium giant Alcoa, which has a smelter at Portland and an operation at Geelong. Although primarily an Alcoa route, Avalon-Portland operates 20 flights a week as a RPT service and carries other passengers. The airline also operates charters into Portland for shipping lines which rotate crews through the busy port and for the oil and gas industry, and also offers ad hoc charter and freight services.

While Hamilton is the operational base, maintenance is carried out by its seven engineering staff at Portland.

Sharp undertakes all its own maintenance except on engines, which are contracted out to Hawker Pacific and Tenix.

The airline introduced its first Metroliners into service at the start of 2007 and now has four – and an option on a fifth which is likely to be taken up, although it is also considering upgrading its Metro IIIs.

Sharp Airlines also has a Piper Chieftain, a recently acquired Piper Seneca, two Cessna 172s and two Cessna 182s, and has an arrangement to contract in a Beechcraft King Air when the workload requires it.

The prime role for the four Cessnas is pilot training at Hamilton – although the 182s also operate as fire reconnaissance aircraft during the summer bushfire season.

The flying school is managed by Sharp Airlines partner, director and chief flying instructor (and former Sharp flying student) Peter Sobey. Although Malcolm Sharp learned to fly at the Hamilton Aero Club, gaining his private licence at the age of 16 in 1983, the Sharp Airlines flying school has moved away from recreational flying to concentrate on training commercial pilots.

It recently completed a $200,000 pilot education centre at Hamilton, and is negotiating to train pilots for other airlines.

Sobey says Hamilton’s advantages include ideal flying conditions, immediate access to open airspace and direct access to controlled airspace over Melbourne.

The full-time course takes 12 months, although the school does offer part-time instruction. Sobey claims the Sharp flying school has the lowest instructor-trainee ratios in Australia – one to five.

The company has graduated more than 100 pilots. “They’re flying for airlines in Australia and all over the world now,’’ Malcolm Sharp says.

It introduced a cadetship scheme in 1992, guaranteeing a year’s work with Sharp Airlines at the end of the course, and has 16 cadets in training under the system at present.

“That has protected us quite a bit from the pilot shortage,’’ Sharp says.

“Our cadets tend to stay for three or four years. ’’ However, with high fuel prices and the economy starting to slow, and some airlines cutting back services already, he believes the pilot shortage could ease over the next year.

“There’s certainly fear of a correction in the aviation market,” he says.

“For the next 12 months we’ll probably sit on our hands. Last (financial) year was supposed to be a year of consolidation for us, but we had opportunities to expand. I’d like to consolidate this year. ’’ But, he admits, despite the tougher times emerging in the industry, Sharp Airlines does have prospects for further expansion in the year ahead, particularly in the resources sector.