White Paper’s Sydney failings

Lengthy delays in choosing a second airport could force any foreign operators wanting to get back into the east coast market to use Melbourne or Brisbane. This is already occurring where suitable Sydney slots aren’t available, and will hamper the much forecast China expansion. Virgin Blue may have to seriously consider upgrading to widebodies solely to maintain domestic market share through Sydney, where Qantas already uses widebodies on the most dense domestic routes.

Those regional cities where Rex and or Virgin have not sought to compete against Qantas might be denied otherwise logical entries, although Virgin’s use of E-Jets are bound by both the curfew and cap. There will also come limits to the protected access rights regionals have, possibly forcing Rex into larger aircraft. Bankstown is not a serious overflow airport, and any splitting of regionals from onward interstate and international connections is not on, given the vast distances many NSW passengers have to drive to catch a flight to Sydney, let alone then face surface connection delays. Sydney’s parlous city transport system isn’t likely to see high speed trains to the likes of Bankstown, Richmond or further out.

Many can be forgiven for thinking the government is deliberately dragging Sydney out until demand pressures at Sydney are so high they will get a much higher price for Richmond- post RAAF- which with minor alterations would present an instant movement safety valve. Building a new airport from scratch will take much longer but, as at other cities, military transports will be free to use the second Sydney airport.

No one questions the curfew, but the movement cap counts light aircraft and turboprops which are exempt from curfews. The simple answer is to exclude all turboprop movements from the cap. It might be politically attractive to exclude them on overwater paths, but that could not be scheduled, and not always useful to “catch up’. Full relaxation would not only increase scheduled hourly capacity more in line with runway occupancy capacity but allow much “catch up”. Delayed turboprops now forced into the curfew would in many cases be processed before it – a bonus for the noise sensitive.

The current lack of a catch up provision also has greater affects on the national airways network. The loss of up to 40 slots due to thunderstorms can’t be recovered later, even outside of the curfew. As soon as the Bureau of Meteorology puts a hard time on disruptive Sydney weather ATIS, other major airports add, “expect delays to Sydney departures,” demonstrating the greater impact around the country.

One recent afternoon storm closure saw aircraft delayed at various ports the next morning. At other times, even in clearer skies, ATIS will suddenly notify delays to Sydney departures due to traffic management – the cap at work. Speed micro-management irks many early morning inbound longhaul crew who start getting Set Course (delay times) over various waypoints en route Sydney , even when in Melbourne or Brisbane Centre’s airspace. When the reason is only the cap, it is just another thing added on to the controllers’ workload along with other previously non-ATC provided functions. As such, they do a professional job handling it.

“The loss of up to 40 slots due to thunderstorms can’t be recovered later,”

The longer the procrastination the greater the cost of who goes to the new airport. Many would like to see KSA close or reduced to a London City level facility -which would spark a vast compensation claim by its powerful operator, Macquarie Bank. Removing Qantas to a new site would be hideously costly and disruptive, while sending Virgin Blue to a new site would impact on its feed from Rex and the wider international network. Based on likely compensation costs, Qantas, Virgin Group and existing internationals might remain at KSA, with all others going to the new site. But despite the elaborate 2029 graphs, traffic growth would see a capped KSA able to accommodate them.

Political motivation could see caps tried at Adelaide, expanding the current non curfew arrangements at Perth and Brisbane airports. These two red hot problems with broader national implications should have been addressed and must be- now.