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

Airservices data doesn't cover the 80s but interesting to see change in helo movements in the period 1999-2015 from their data,

in 2015 helo movements (39,172) = 17.8% of 220,166 total movements
in 2000 helo movements (27,284) = 9.1% of 298,798 total movements

The 2004/5 master plan says that in 1988 when the FAC took control of the airport annual movements were over 400000.

The History of Bankstown Airport found here http://www.lockoweb.com/Final%20Draft.htm#_Toc243020835

states that in the early 1980's there were 460 aircraft based there. My guess is there would only be 150-200 (at best) aircraft currently based there.

Also found in an old aviation mag, that Jandakot had 325000 movements in 1989.

Back in the late 70s even Archerfield was managing 1000 a day at weekends. Under GAAP procedures ATC only cleared aircraft for take off as I recall and for operations on crosswind runways so there was not as much radio talk as there is nowadays.

Just came across this thread and have to say 1700 on a weekend day would have been normal in the late eighties when I worked there.

I post this for pure historical interest. Can’t help withBankstown but here is data from Moorabbin from 1962 to 2015. If you look hardenough it is actually in the public domain- but from around 2000 it wasavailable on the internet or through airport master plans. I just updated from2008 to 2015 from ASA sources.

As in everything there are lies, damned lies and statistics,so look at the notes at the bottom.
As for me, nobody can tell me Moorabbin is not busy. Theother Thursday we sat at the 17L holding point for 22 minutes to get clearancefor night circuits- as CAE C172 after C172 did their thing. And when a gap camealong a bl**dy CAE Kingair snuck in! So it’s not the movements total that youneed to look at- it’s the content of the movements.

Enjoy the stats:

Year Movements(thousands)

1962 134
1963 189
1964 196
1965 258
1966 320
1967 320
1968 321
1969 240
1970 212
1971 208
1972 218
1973 254
1974 246
1975 257
1976 301
1977 327
1978 342
1979 327
1980 289
1981 270
1982 249
1983 238
1984 266
1985 299
1986 323
1987 289
1988 326
1989 395 airline pilot strike
1990 386
1991 357
1992 338
1993 328
1994 339
1995 347
1996 350
1997 363
1998 296 removal of fuel subsidies. Reducedtower hours. Airport sale
1999 259 Avgas crisis
2000 257 introduction of GST
2001 254
2002 253 effects of 911 attacks
2003 236 extensive bushfire season/poor weather
2004 229
2005 265
2006 234 suspect Airservices data this year(*)
2007 310 vast increase in overseas studenttraining
2008 352
2009 311
2010 252 Overseas student market collapse (mycomments)
2011 275
2012 235
2013 225
2014 236 overseas student market renewal (mycomments)
2015 242

• The period 1962-1986 is a historic recordderived from DCA files, no corroborating evidence is available. 1986-1988 fromDCA published data. 1998 onwards from Airservices data.
• In 1967 the peak week of July was 9,617. Peak day in April 2,077. Peak hour in September:343
• However data is only derived from times whentower was open. Tower hours were reduced in 1998 and increased when airportchanged from GAAP to class D.
• Weather has a disproportionate effect onmovements.
• (my comments) Most years are calendar years butsome are financial years, so caution advised over specific numbers. The trendis your friend.
• (my comments): huge proportionate increase inhelicopter movements from 2008 onwards
• (*)data derived from flight strips and faxed to Canberra-fax machine was at times faulty.

Moorabbin has held on way better than Bankstown. Is there are a correlation comparing treatment of tenants by the leaseholder of each aerodrome?

Appols too, Dick. I was looking hard to see real effects of reg changes for airspace classification and charging regimes...Moorabbin doesn't stand out for any effects around 88 and late 90s early 2000s. Aviation despite doom and gloom predictions?

My bet is on GAAP aerodrome privatisation precipitating predatory practices of the new leaseholder.

Just a one way ratchet of increased costs in just about all ways for GA.

Yes. Privatisation one thing but also government regulatory requirement costs have also increased. I disaster

Oi! You not disaster, Dick. :O