Under pressure

Some ports were too close or too small, but initially all survived. Nearby towns were linked to airports by airline-provided buses or taxis, such as Young and Grenfell to Cowra (East-West), and several centres by bus to Butler’s Evans Head-Sydney service.

Evans Head and Glen Innes – like Maryborough in Queensland – were ‘gift’ airports built during World War 2. Glen Innes’s main runway was bomber-capable – part of the ‘Brisbane line’ – its then great length the product of its high density altitude of over 6,000ft in summer.

But some bus-linked towns built airports, taking so many passengers from the parent port that they closed. Casino – an Evans Head link – built an airport that was later F28 capable, snaring traffic from Lismore, which was Evans Head’s main source of passengers.

Lismore then built a short, turboprop-capable runway between the river and hills, hitting Casino hard and capturing traffic from rapidly growing Ballina. Standout success Ballina built its own airport, which is now A320/737-capable, and only it and Lismore in that part of the state are now served by airlines.

Once the NSW expansion was in place, many scenarios saw two nearby ports linked, such as Taree and Port Macquarie, and Glen Innes and Inverell. The latter are both now without services, with better-connected Armidale taking their passengers.

Rex has sounded a warning about Taree and Grafton loadings being reduced by passengers using nearby Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour flights. But the lucky places, including paired ports, often saw a business-timed same-day return service to Sydney.

East-West linked six NSW ports with Brisbane: some with redeveloped Stanthorpe, Warwick and, at weekends, Coolangatta. Butler linked four Queensland ports with Sydney. Smaller operators using sub-19-seaters began a large feeder network that also linked NSW ports with Brisbane from Tamworth and Newcastle. All, with Hazelton and Kendell, have now gone.

Allowing interstate buses to carry intrastate passengers droveout many leaner regional air services. Better roads to major airports accounted for others. To date, excluding Brindabella ports, close to 50 Butler/East-West boom-time towns including six in southern Queensland have lost their air links to Sydney.

Over the years Butler, East-West, Hazelton and Kendell would end up as part of the Ansett group. Today, just QantasLink and Rex (formed after the Ansett collapse from a merger of Kendell and Hazelton) remain, especially since Brindabella’s closure.

The Brindabella collapse forced the NSW government to reissue its licences. But there are problems looming, as noted by Rex.

Awarding separate licences to Moree and Narrabri may not be the best outcome – no fault of the operators – and should be more deeply analysed in view of passenger numbers. Moree with 27,000 passengers annually and Narrabri with 14,000 may support a better service if paired and runby a single operator.

A 34 or 36-seater should be viable with about 18 return flights to Sydney weekly, supporting same-day return timing with an 0630 departure from Moree and a 1730 departure from Sydney, plus another Sydney-Moree-Narrabri-Sydney service in between most days. A 50-seater could provide the same-day return pattern but fewer off-peak flights. The sought-after same-day return timing should boost loadings, generating more flights.

There are calls for the Tamworth-Brisbane route to be reopened. Impulse last loaded 500 passengers a month through both Tamworth and Armidale, indicating that routing via Armidale using same-day return timing with Dash 8-100s or Saab 340s may be viable, possibly fitting Skytrans’s Dash 8 equipment and basing – provided critical business-timed morning and evening slots can be obtained at Brisbane.

Rex may be forced to drop Taree as it is too close to booming Port Macquarie, now handling 191,000 passengers a year, and link Lismore at 36,000 pa to 46,000 peak (affected by runaway success Ballina at 300,000 Sydney and 100,000 Melbourne passengers last year) with Grafton at 13,700 pa to 28,000 peak, supporting same-day return timing both ways plus off-peak flights – Sydney peak-hour slots permitting.

Economic survival and timing improvements at ‘threatened’ leaner ports may demand this type of rejig if operators are to provide profitable services that are not skinned by nearby boom ports whose frequencies or jets provide attractive alternatives. It could rationalise into optimally spaced major ports and paired small ports, also requiring protected Sydney and Brisbane slots.