Bankstown Movements - were they ever 470,000 per annum?
 

Quite often a claim has been made that at its peak Bankstown had about 470,000 movements per annum. I understand the movements now are about 170,000 per annum and in 2008 they were 329,000.

Can anyone confirm these figures and can anyone confirm what the highest movement rate was at Bankstown and what particular years?

Look forward to any advice.

From memory it was in the mid to late 80's and perhaps again in the early 90's, before greed (and the government) destroyed GA.

That is about 0.9 movements per minute - continues 24/7/365 all weather all aircraft.


What do they call a movement?

Dick, have you checked the Federal Airports Corporation Annual Reports? They always had movement reports for all the FAC airports, the National Library of Australia has copies available.

Footnote 1 from Airservices Australia report:

1. Movements are the sum of Arrivals and Circuits multiplied by 2 ie (A + C) x 2

So that is basically an arrival and/or a departure.

I can not see Bankstown doing a take off and or landing every minute for 24 hrs a day every day of the year for a full year.


Lets get Mythbusters in on this but I say BUSTED!

Seems that stats are found all over the effing place.

BITRE statistics from the annual surveys General Aviation Activity are not reported on a location basis, (but it is absolutely fascinating to know that in 2013 there were 3 Aquila aircraft that did 1.6 hours of training)
The Airservices stats at Movements at Australian airports ? archive | Airservices are organised on a monthly basis. sigh....

From the 2014 BAL preliminary draft master plan they say an average of 500 movements per day.
There are small graphs in that document and a table further in, that show a peak of 370000ish movements in 2008ish and a trough of 240000ish in 2004ish.
The 2012ish value is about 180000ish.
(you try reading those freaking graphs and see what you get)

Don't forget that back in the 80's it was comon to have aircraft arriving and departing on 11L/29R, 11C/29C, while circuits were going on on 11R/29L. You also had multiple helicopter movements occurring at the same time.
It was that busy back then, that at times you had to ring up the tower and book in if you wante to do circuits.
The big schools (Royal NSW Aero club, Navair, REX/Skywise, AFTS and Illawarra/Chieftan) had large fleets 10-20 aircraft and you still had to book in 4 weeks ahead to get your instructor and aircraft.

Thanks John

Would there be anyone who can put me onto the figures without a visit to the National Library?

Surely they must be available somewhere on Google that I haven't yet discovered.

Heck. in the mid 90's it was not uncommon to need to do a few ground circuits to try and find a parking spot at YSBK after a training session.

If you look at the data at The Airservices stats at Movements at Australian airports ? archive | Airservices,
it has the following results, based on calendar year

2007 354,262

2008 362,206

2009 347,266

2010 275,978

2011 243,126

2012 236030

2013 215802

2014 227500

2015 220166

i learnt to fly at YSBK during the late 80's at every runway holding point, 3 aircraft waiting, the runup bays always full, and you waited for 3 or 4 aircraft to land before getting take off clearances, the circuit wait was similar, and 4 aircraft in the circuit would be an average day.

today, never have to wait at a holding point, rarely wait for another aircraft to land, and now 4 aircraft in the circuit is rare. even on a perfect Saturday morning.. i have spent many hours alone in the circuit on weekends now. maybe sharing with 2 others when its busy.. every second hangar now derelict, or being used for other non aviation businesses. very sad.

Oz. that's a staggering drop over such a short period. Road Traffic on our roads seems to have doubled over the same period.

Surely someone must be able to find figures from the 80s

Dick, The Airservices data only goes back to 1999, but the peak between 1999 and 2015 is the 347,266 in 2009

Just found an article in an old Australian Flying Mag from Nov 1987 when they interviewed one of the tower controllers. In it the controller says they have a around 1700 movements on each day on weekends and 1000 movements on each week day. So that's a 8400 movements each week and 436800 movements per year.

Gad. 1700 per day on weekends. Recent weekends in good weather have been incredibly quite- I wonder if 20% of that.

And remember Hoxton Park and Schofields have closed.

Dick,


We all know that GA movements around Sydney are only a small fraction of what they were 30 years ago.


(Schofields Flying Club never added much to the total in 1983 when I learnt to fly there. For the club then only operated on weekends. They had six Warriors and a Decathalon, some of which were sometimes flown to YSBK on late Sunday afternoon for hire there during the week.)


So what is the point that you are trying to make? Surely nothing to do with MDX?

No nothing to do with MDX

I wish to get factual figures for the new minister.

It's important we get the real figures of the movements at their maximum..

I will send a researcher to the National Library if necessary but much prefer to donate the money to Angel Flight!

Folks,
Too many of you are applying present day criteria, which would, indeed, make 400,000 plus per year at YSBK impossible.
What many of you will never have known was that the most common runway direction was 05/23, with a runway and an all over grass area.
Four or five abreast on final was common, with probably 15-20 aircraft doing circuits at peaks, plus true arrival and departure traffic.
In those days, helicopter traffic was a very small percentage of operations, now almost a third of Bankstown movements are helos., according to "official" figures.
Tootle pip!!

Put the car keys away Dick, this might save you the drive into town. Movements at Australian airports ? archive | Airservices