I wonder how many people are making a 6 figure income out of YMIA now, compared with when the Council was running it.
Technically the council still runs the airport. But its done via a board that the council appoints. The first problem is that the board does not have anyone with an aviation background, nor anyone that represents aerodrome based business or aviation stakeholders. Its predominately big ego local business people on the board for the status.
The second issue that that the board appointed an empire building CEO who demonstrates very little interest in consultation with either the airport users or even CASA (who has sanctioned the CEO and or airport twice). The airport / CEO has basically been in open warfare (publicly reported in the press) at one time or another with every airport user - including each of the airlines who fly in to Mildura, a number of whom have reduced services to Mildura citing difficulties with the airport management as a contributing factor. The most recent CASA study of Mildura notes that while passenger numbers through Mildura have increased (largely on the back of fly-in fly-out workers for rail, solar and mining projects) that aircraft movements have decreased. The airport management seems to be intent on pursuing some sort of status / image agenda rather than serving the best interest of Mildura or aviation.
Mildura airport fits the model of airport monopolies that the ACCC is currently turning its attention toward - see Graeme Samuel's article in the Australian dated Wed Oct 9. and another article in the Fin Review on Sept 19 naming Mildura as one of the airports with "Sky High" airport fees.
One of the problems of the federal government handing over airports to local councils is that councils simply don't have the expertise to run them. Mildura is a classic example. Its basically out of control. It submits flawed master plans, then pays them lip service in implementation, but the council never holds it to account to deliver against its master plan and its budget & performance is not available for public scrutiny. Nor does the council ever require and benchmarking of Mildura against other airports. So Mildura airport - like many other council run airports - basically unaccountable and the CEO runs a fiefdom. A benchmarking study of Mildura against other large regional airports that mix GA & RPT would show that Mildura is performing poorly on most measures. One of the single best things that could be done is to require airports to report benchmarks on a range of measures. I think a number of airports would stand out as being managed ineffectively.
A point of interest at Mildura is the number of staff required to maintain it since its been under the current management. The local businesses that have been there long enough will tell you its exploded from a handful to over 20 - during which time the land area and and facilities have stayed the same or reduced a little. The costs of all of this are passed onto users with question or scrutiny.
One of the sadnesses is that Mildura council doesn't recongnise the damage being done to Mildura. People who fly-in use taxi's, hire cars, stay in hotels, restaurants and local shops. People who drive in to camp, don't use any of these services and typically even bring in their own food. Before the current management, when I stopped at Mildura for fuel there was always, always at least one other aircraft fuelling and a number of parked visiting aircraft. Now I typically see either other aircraft fuelling and typically my aircraft is parked on its own for days at a time. The loss of business to the Mildura economy, I suspect, is significant in an environment where a number of Motels are struggling.