Second Sydney Airport Necessary: TICNSW

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, 19^th August 2011)

Second Sydney Airport in the Spotlight Again

Federal Transport Minister Albanese has once more raised the issue of a second Sydney airport - while spelling out some non-negotiables.

There's already a joint Federal and State government study into the issue underway, but Albanese obviously felt it important to clarify what is and what is not on the table.

The report from that study is due later this year, but it won't be the best possible result because the committee is constrained from canvassing all possible options.

It can't, for example, decide that there's no need for a second Sydney airport, because the Minister doesn't want to hear that.

It also can't recommend more efficient use of the existing airport, because the Minister has said that, "On my watch, there will be no shift in the curfew or the cap on movements at Sydney Airport".

And it also can't bring Bankstown Airport into the equation as part of a solution, because the Minister has been loudly unequivocal about that airport remaining RPT free.

Despite those constraints, the Minister said this week that, "One of the things that we've done is make sure that we remove the politics from this. In the past it has suffered becaue politics has interfered with good policy making. That's why when we established the committee it was independent of government, at arm's length. There are no politicians on this committee."

Minister Albanese also insisted, at the same doorstop interview, that the study committee has been given "very wide terms of reference".

And, "The committee is examining all of the options. I'm letting them do their work without ruling things in or out. The Government has a position of not proceeding with Badgerys Creek, but otherwise the committee's been allowed to do its work."

On another front, one might hope that such a wide-ranging study would factor in the high-speed rail concept, for which a separate preliminary study is also underway. After all, the location of a second Sydney airport might have implications for such a rail project.

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