White Paper’s Sydney failings

The lengthy white paper fails on two critical ticking time bombs – selecting the second Sydney airport site, and the 80 movements per hour cap at Kingsford Smith Airport. Both will combine to severely limit growth to the point of constricting passenger uplift, as has been long pointed out by airlines and tourism organisations. Given aviation demand responds disproportionately to economic swings, passenger demand will increase at a faster rate than economic growth. Yet the government hides behind forecasts showing the 80 per hour movement cap will only be reached in morning and evening peak periods by 2029.

Had Qantas not invested heavily in a big fleet of new 50/74 seat Dash 8 Q300/Q400s creating a large number of jet slots for it, and many carriers from Europe not pulled out, room to increase would be more limited. A great windfall was the loss of around 60 movements a day to and from the Hunter region as road and direct flights from Newcastle killed most of them off.