NSW tourism leaders are urging the Government to move forward with a second airport in Sydney, despite Sydney Airport experiencing a 1.4 percent drop in domestic arrivals over July this year compared to the last.
Tourism Industry Council New South Wales (TICNSW) executive officer Andrew Jefferies explained that passenger movements and low-cost carrier growth into NSW indicated a need for a second airport.
According to a report compiled by Tourism Futures International for Destination NSW, up to 42.6 percent of holiday visitors and 43 percent of total international arrivals into Australia flew into Sydney over the past ten years.
Of visitor arrivals Sydney welcomed a 0.7 percent growth over the decade and its residents departing overseas rose by 5.4 percent per annum.
Meanwhile Mr Jefferies said the city could be doing better but it is missing out passenger opportunities because it only caters to ten percent of the low-cost carriers flying into Sydney compared to Melbourne which welcomes 15 percent, Perth 29 percent and Brisbane 20 percent.
“Low Cost Carriers drive growth in passenger movements and benefit the local economy in so many ways,” Mr Jefferies explained.
“Sydney is clearly missing out on its share of the LCC market and a second Sydney Airport would be a catalyst for economic growth in our State.”
Earlier today Sydney Airport released its passenger movements over July, with a 1.4 percent drop over the month this year compared to the last while international arrivals increased by 2.7 percent.
The strong Aussie dollar is keeping Aussies from travelling domestically, according to Sydney Airport owners, MAp, with results for last month indicated that only 2,056,000 domestic travellers passed through the major airport compared to 2,085,000 during the corresponding period last year.
Despite the drop, domestic travel for the year maintained a 0.9 percent growth to 13.8 million compared to 13.67 million during the first seven months of last year.
MAp chief executive Kerrie Mather explained that domestic figures were affected by the grounding of Tiger Airways, while international outbound and Asian markets performed well over the period.
“Sydney recorded a small decrease in traffic during July, with pleasing growth in the international market offset by a weaker domestic market, where the temporary grounding of Tiger Airways impacted traffic by approximately 5 percentage points,” Ms Mather said.
“Despite the modest headline rate, July 2011 was the best July on record for international traffic at the airport, with growth driven by ongoing airline capacity increases, in particular from Asian carriers and Qantas.”
(Source: eTravelblackboard, 19th August 2011)
