Originally Posted by
BuzzBox
Neville,
It's about airport demand management.
Perhaps so, but the airport IS responsible for providing the movement areas, parking areas and passenger handling facilities. Smaller airports such as Canberra have limited space and can't accept too many international diversions. Diversion agreements help the airport to manage the efficient use of its facilities by limiting the number of large aircraft that might turn up with little notice.
It matters because the airport's scheduled flights can't move if the airport becomes clogged with diverted aircraft.
If a 9/11 event happened they don't exactly have to worry about scheduled flights if the whole airspace is closed do they? After reading both articles and sitting on the fence for a while, I'm siding with QF. Diversion management plan or not, plenty of airfields round Australia don't have that luxury. I'd love to know if Toowoomba (Wellcamp) has the same for any airlines, being that it's runway can service a 747-800 and has different weather patterns from BNE/OOL/MCY?