Here is another article recently from the SMH on Melbourne airport.
It is interesting to notice what the focus is on. The airport CEO points to LAX and says how bad it is, when in reality they have 4 runways, ILS's everywhere and handle a large amount of traffic.
LAX had 697 138 movements in 2016.
MEL doesn't seem that interested in logging aircraft movements but they had 192 641 in 10-11.
These guys are really just interested in running shopping centres not airports hence the focus on passenger numbers and amenities.
It would be interesting to see what LAX charges are in comparison to MEL as well.
Stop bashing us, 'bruised' Melbourne Airport tells airlines
Patrick Hatch
The boss of Melbourne Airport has hit back at claims that Australia's monopoly airports are gouging airlines and that privatisation has been a failure.
Instead, Lyell Strambi says airports should get more credit for helping boost carriers' profits.
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"I feel a little bruised that we're not getting full credit for the great work that we actually do," says Melbourne Airport chief Lyell Strambi.
Airlines have been on a war path over what they say are skyrocketing fees to land and take off at airports, and earlier this year Qantas, Virgin Australia, Air New Zealand and Regional Express formed the group Airlines for Australia and New Zealand to lobby for relief.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's annual report into airports this year found airports had steadily increased how much they charged airlines and boosted their profit margins over the past 10 years, taking in $1.57 billion more in revenue than if they kept the fees steady in real terms.
And the privatisation of Australia's airports has recently come under global criticism.
But Mr Strambi, Melbourne Airport's CEO, said airlines and airports' interests were aligned, and that airports had made significant investments to help carriers improve their profits.
He pointed to his airport building facilities to accommodate the double-decker Airbus A380 flown by Qantas and other airlines, and the building of the new T4 low-cost carrier terminal as examples where the airport's investment had improved airlines' efficiency.
"You need to look past the headline to actually say, yes, prices may well have increased beyond CPI from an airport charges perspective, but when you look at airfares and the resulting cost to the customer, they've continued to come down," Mr Strambi said.
Melbourne Airport's boss has hit back at claims of gouging.
"I feel a little bruised that we're not getting full credit for the great work that we actually do."
Try landing in LA
Alexandre de Juniac, chief executive of commercial aviation's global body the International Air Travel Association, named and shamed Australia last month as a country where privatising airports had been a failure, resulting in higher fees for airlines to the detriment of passengers and local economies.
But Mr Strambi, whose airport marked 20 years of private ownership this week, said anyone critical of privatisation should visit a government-owned airport such as Los Angeles International.
"That was a government facility and it actually looked and felt like a government facility: under investment, no real passenger amenity," he said.
"It's been really interesting, they haven't privatised the airport but they have introduced a private partner in Westfield into that airport and that has fundamentally changed the passenger experience."
'Liberation of capital'
Mr Strambi said privatising Australia's airports had resulted in a "liberation of capital from the public purse", and that private owners - a group of investors, mostly superannuation funds, in Melbourne's case - had greater discipline and accountability than governments would have.
Sydney Airport had the highest profit margin for aeronautical services last year at 46.7 per cent, followed by Brisbane Airport (44.9 per cent), Melbourne (38.2 per cent) and Perth (33.5 per cent), according to the ACCC.
Melbourne Airport estimates passenger numbers will double to 70 million a year over the next two decades and that it will overtake Sydney Airport as the nation's busiest.
It hopes to have a third runway operational by 2022 to deal with that growth.