Debrief

Great Keppel Island (International?)

Twenty jet minutes south of Mackay, Great Keppel [Island] faced razing to make way for a Hamilton Island style jet airport and luxury residential estate. Unresolved land use issues exist, but high profile names have been dropped, along with the prospect of the rich and famous jetting in.

Keppel has been fed from nearby Rockhampton since inception. Rocky has been upgraded, largely funded by the Singapore Defence Forces, and handles the largest jet transports in the USAF and RAAF inventories in support of Shoalwater Bay training exercises. Heavy civil and military jets from other nations are regular visitors, mainly on military support tasks dating back to the Vietnam War.

History demonstrates that these high cost island developments, often requiring considerable engineering and construction expertise as they are largely no the exposed tips of submerged mountains, have changed hands several times at vast capital losses until someone picked them up at the right time for the right price. With domestic and inbound international passenger numbers falling -from Southeast Asia in particular – and far higher priorities at home such as financing, now hardly seems the right time. Even if it was, 5 or 6 international airports in regional area only 25 minutes beggars credibility.

Schedules

Traditionally domestic schedules return to normal after Australia Day, but this year some didn’t reappear until February, with regular late notice jet cancellations still appearing daily. Parallel scheduling has increased including to places getting only several flights per day. Some flights run so close that ATC have to award the leading aircraft direct routing, maximum speed climb, cruise and descent. This means one misses out on its optimum level, and the trailing aircraft can be denied track shortening or given a speed limit to provide separation or set up the descent, which costs more than the recent slowing of aircraft to save fuel. With an unprecedented ten different flight profiles and cruise speeds intermingled on RPT flights, scheduling them on top of one another will bring totally self-inflicted results.
Conversely, on some routes with few flights, similar time competition has quietly vanished. On Brisbane-Darwin, Virgin Blue now has the overnight monopoly since Jetstar changed to a daylight service, while Qantas has no opposition for its am up/pm back services. Each of the three now has 7-8 hours ‘windows’ free of competition, and all other Qantas and Jetstar links to Darwin are similarly separated.

Loads

A number of operational indicators show that the airline’s passenger loads are falling. Many widebodies flying to and from Southeast Asia are now 4,000ft higher on entry to our airspace, indicating they are carrying a few tonnes less payload. Domestically, Virgin Blue has been able to equal or exceed Qantas on trunk route frequency without using widebodies. It has also judicious used its E-Jets on these routes leaving, numbers of 737s idle, instead of swamping prime regional Qantas Link and Rex routes with them as was predicted.

V Australia

While unfortunately missing the Christmas peak courtesy of Boeing’s industrial problems, the launch of V Australia makes it the first new local long haul carrier since Ansett International. But while AN leased surplus aircraft from other airlines to enter growing markets, V Aus are using costly brand new 777s in a venture costing several times Virgin Blue’s market capitalisation. The flat Pacific market will soon be overcrowded with four non-stop carriers, plus one offering attractive one stop fares, while potential Asian routes are in decline. The world has changed since V Aus was conceived, and even Singapore Airlines has been recently silent about the Pacific.

Bush Airports- Just Fix It.

Typifying the ultimate bottom of the heap, Karumba’s 1050 people are facing 3 months or more of flood isolation, dependent on helicopters and barges because its short, unsealed airstrip remains unusable. Meanwhile, other 1500m and longer sealed runways with no air services and others served infrequently by specialist short runway types have been resealed or upgraded. Karumba locals cite credible operational, safety and economic reasons to support a relocated sealed all weather, night capable, GPS approach equipped runway nearby. Such communities deserve these kind of flood free airports and terminals, but funding, even just to match government grants, is beyond local resources.