Cost Recovery?..
It would be only slightly more understandable if our cities were so large, or so over populated that the land within airport boundaries was absolutely the very last option for development! That is not the case in our country. In Australia we are blessed with vast space and land surrounding our cities and regional towns, when compared to many other cities around the world.
Further, the adverse effects of climate change are increasingly impacting on aviation in Australia. Our airport leasing companies and their supporting consultants should also carefully consider the severity of weather their respective locations are likely to encounter in the years to come, specifically during the initial infrastructure design and planning stages.
Perhaps the Commonwealth government should explore a mechanism facilitating cost recovery - that is, allowing at least a proportion of these substantial airline and customer costs to be passed back to an airport operator. The significant direct and indirect costs associated with; missed approaches, delays, cancellations and/or diversions, if the event can be attributable to poorly designed, inappropriately sited or overdeveloped airport infrastructure, should not just be the shared responsibility of the airlines and the public. This is particularly true if the additional related costs were somewhat attributable to ‘non-aviation’ infrastructure. A regime such as this is likely to motivate airport operators to plan and design airport infrastructure more appropriately.