Australian Airport Closures
 

Some interesting activity coming from just three mainline airports that I know of;

Gold Coast Airport - looking at closing part of its terminal to save electricity costs.

Cairns Airport - preparing to close the International terminal to save energy costs.

Brisbane Airport - they are currently discussing moving domestic operations over to the international terminal and then shutting down the domestic terminal to save energy costs.

Townsville Airport; putting infrastructure upgrades on ice and looking at ways to potentially shut off part of the terminal.

I would imagine there are other airports out there considering or already doing some of the above actions. Interesting to see the flow-down effect which of course goes well beyond airlines and airports.

Sunshine Coast Airport if I recall correctly was discussing turning off part of their terminal to save on electricity costs since all passenger flights were suspended.

This is why airports,a key strategic part of the countries infrastructure should always be owned and run by the Federal Government!!

One upon a time I would have disagreed with this, but after a few decades of watching critical infrastructure rot as corporations siphon the profits, I agree! Time for our corporate “leaders” to be shooed away from the trough and grounded like teenagers who can’t be trusted.

be great but remember this is Australia, one of the most corrupt countries on the planet, we are a 3RD world nation hiding under a 1ST world mask!

Heard someone remark the other day "Australia is the only Third World country where you can safely drink the tap water"
The corruption that goes unseen, in plain sight, is unbearable!
My other favourite saying is "It's only a rort if you're not in it" :=

Airport closures? Great been ripping us off blind for years.

Definitely agree with you on this one.

Up to your usual standard machtuk. Why do you bother ?
Apart from the febrile knee-jerk response, why do you think Government would do any better?
Much better that private organisations manage the shutdown WITHOUT government interference.

Canberra Airport to close Rwy 12/30 because of "the Corona virus situation"!

What this means is that it will never reopen and release a huge tract of land for developers. Don't worry about the smaller aircraft users and that the airport is supposed to remain in the configuration at the change from the FAC.

Also on the grapevine the closure of the southern parallel runway at YSBK.

You obviously haven't travelled much machtuk. In fact, Australia is one of the "cleanest" nations on Earth according to the authoritive Transparency International who publish an annual index.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....005478cb65.jpg
Best not tell stories! :=

Regarding airports I'm old enough to remember the converted hangars and Quonset huts that served as airport terminals for all the DC4s and snazzy new DC6's, Viscounts and Electras during the Government days. I don't believe the Governments managed the airports any better than Private Enterprise and in fact, probably managed them far worse? Government's aviation involvement now is CASA and AsA both of which confirm in my mind that Government should not be allowed anywhere near commercial aviation.

As an example, Cairns airport was sold to a consortium which consisted of JP Morgan, Perron Investments, and others. All that has been done since the sale is they have added boutique stores and cafes so they can charge more rent, they’ve upgraded car parking (to extract more fees) and they shut down RWY 12/30 and jacked up rent so as to deliberately force light aircraft operators to move to Malanda, so they could charge higher rents to larger operators in Cairns. The international terminal looks the set of a 1970’s porn film or something out of Austen Powers. An outdated hole. All the owners do is suck out money and pump minimal back in. And if you want to see how an airport kills people by allowing infrastructure to encroach upon runways and airspace just look at Essendon Fields. The current GM Aviation is a total muppet. Then you have Bankstown, a former hub for training and maintenance. Now it’s an aeronautically deserted ghost town surrounded by building complexes. As for what is buried beneath the runway and leaks into the Georgeous River when the area floods, well you really don’t want to be one of the local residences whose house floods with the toxic crap leaking out from below the surface.

Yes, privatisation and asset sales are a wonderful thing aren’t they?

And if they were government owned, imagine the uproar at the wasted tax payers money as the unused terminals sat empty, lights blazing, aircon running.......

the tap water line is a direct quote from Alan Whicker and his travel show Whickers World from the 1960's and 1970's .. It may have been true fifty years ago, and it was said with affection - Oz has grown a lot since then too!

Remember the Govt sold a monopoly. There is no accountability to the public...

Airlines lose their customers, partially close down and mothball aircraft and boo hoo. Airports lose their customers, partially close down and moth ball facilities and they're money grubbing *****? Everyone is being dictated to by the various governments and everyone is feeling the pain. Everyone's got bills to pay. No one is doing any of this for fun.

Hey Flitefone, I wasn't claiming that line as anything original, but i do use it with affection :ok:
I've been to plenty of Thirld World countries and you wouldn't want to live there unless you didn't have a choice (which is most of their populations)
I don't know who first quoted the line about rorts, but I bet it was first uttered here in OZ at Camp Cove in 1788, and probably originated in Old Blighty :(

Either way, we, the PUBLIC, PASSENGERS pay..!!

At least, when airports were Gummint owned / operated, one did NOT get 'gouged' for parking / landing fees.......

I used to enjoy landing at SY - FREE of charge, (Well directly anyway...) 'for a cuppa coffee' at the then TAA terminal, with the then '30 minute Light Aircraft Parking Area' right outside!.

No Cheers here...NOPE ! None at all.........................................

To be fair, things are a little (well, were) busier than the days when TAA were around :ok:

Air Ace would recall the zero-cost quonsett huts of the 1950s without running water or electricity and have you believe that the idea of shutting down the 21st century palaces with their bajillion gigawatts of lighting is a communist plot.

I am old enough to remember .... no never mind.