iscover
A tourism taskforce has called for a relaxation of the aircraft movement cap at Sydney Airport in order to meet visitor targets.
The report by the Visitor Economy Taskforce said the federal government should raise the peak hour cap at the airport from 80 to 90 aircraft movements while increasing the number of flights allowed between 5am and 6am from 24 to 35.
The taskforce said those changes would bring in nearly $1 billion a year in increased expenditures and would allow NSW to meet its 2020 tourism goals. But the federal government has repeatedly rejected calls to raise the cap, most recently from a government commissioned study that called for raising the peak hour cap from 80 to 85 flights to help relieve airport congestion. The cap, as well as an overnight flight curfew, is in place in response to concerns over aircraft noise.
The taskforce report also called for a variety of other measure to boost tourism to NSW, saying the state was increasingly losing market share to other states such as Victoria. Those measures include state government incentives to boost construction of new hotels, the development of a brand strategy for the state, and targeted advertising to key tourism markets such as China, the US, Britain and South Korea.
The report did not address the option of building a second Sydney airport.
Dane
says:Winds allowing, couldn’t you launch aircraft on the 16 RWYs and then vector them out over the ocean for a climb to a predetermined altitude before heading over land? Just a thought.
Donald George
says:That, stated simply, is just one of the many procedural control tools employed by controllers, and has been used along with a variety of others, including radar vectoring, for decades.
There is only so much sky, so there can be only so many aeroplanes in it operating safely in according with separation standards.
johnnyboy
says:New PR message from NSW: “Sydney is gaining in its appeal as a global 2nd tier city!” It seems we have our head up our armpit by hanging on to election promises from the 70’s on aircraft noise, long queues at immigration and 3rd class grafitti train services (silver rattlers) at exorbitant prices. The world and its expectations and demands are changing. I love Sydney (and NSW) but wish we were a state of decision makers with the long term future in mind and not just getting the next election over the line.