Western Sydney International & Bankstown
 

Is Bankstown airport doomed ?

The recently released preliminary flightpaths for WSI seem to block any westward routes from YSBI.

The training-area D556B will vanish because WSI is in its' centre and D556A will probably lose its' top half.

No
Yes.

There's been a fair bit of discussion on this sad and sorry topic here: https://www.pprune.org/australia-new...airport-3.html but feel free to continue as you wish. :)

What an absolute ******* embarrassment, there will be NOWHERE in Sydney to do flight training come Badgery's. Biggest city in Australia, if you want to learn how to fly you're gunna have to move regional or interstate.

I'd be suprized if Bankstown does survive, everything it does can be consolidated to WSI, it's current location is squeezed in the middle of the two and with very little airspace. It would make more sense to add a short, second runway to WSI for GA types and send the private/freight/aeromeds there. Training is definitely doomed with a training area more than 30 minutes transit, I can't see YSBK surviving with that sort of cost impost on students and operators.

It'll be an interesting one to watch.. but my take on the surroundings is that yes flight training at YSBK might be doomed and they'll probably lose a runway or two to industrial development, but YSBK and YSCN host enough specialised GA and Helo operators who prefer not to mix with wake turbulence from the big jets at WSI and SYD to keep these airports viable. At least I'm sure that's what SMA would be hoping.

As for flight training, hey if Camden is too far to drive, I'm sure you'd be welcome at Moorabbin (what's left of it..) :}

The WSI master plan already has a second runway planed for future construction, if they had any sense they would make a small one suited for all SBK GA operators and build a GA precinct that can generate income until they need the 2nd runway expansion in 50 years or whatever. That would keep operators segregated both in the air and on the ground.

I believe they looked into that early on and then canned the idea for various reasons, mainly to do with excessive design, logistics and political costs.

The authorities must have completed an airspace design proposal for the airport.

I wonder when it will be released?

Mornin' Dick et al,

I think you're confusing 'our authorities' with 'other authorities' who actually know what they are doing..........

Bye BK .
No cheers here........

Good question. The mix of government "requirements" and private enterprise makes WSI an interesting project. For the longest time it was a slowly-developing train wreck only maybe now just coming back on the rails - maybe.

Perhaps this is normal for government-funded projects (I wouldn't know) but in the private sector one usually has to provide all the paperwork up front to get a planning permit. For this one, it seems the Federal Government bought the land, WSI Corporation was given approval to start the design/build process and with the build half-complete they only now think about generating an EIS that includes noise impacts from flight path planning they haven't really thought much about?!?

It's all very confusing.. for sure there'll be a few dents here and there before it's finally open for business. :(

I’m sure the needs of a new build major capital city airport bringing in billions of $$$$$$ of revenue over its life would trump the needs of little old Bankstown……..sad but necessary I’m afraid.

Bankstown will work it out.

It was probably smart to do it this way, slightly underhand, but the only way to push through what is sorely needed infrastructure. Pretty easy to see the reaction happening now as flight paths are released, if that happened prior to breaking ground the project would have stalled into a mire of NIMBY politics. Easier to say "the airports way out there", let people think it's only going to bother a few horse breeders and then stick them with reality that big jets need to fly over your house to position to land. Look at the issues Melbourne is facing vs locals that moved there well after the airport plan was developed in the 70s. If they just went ahead and built the runway there would be no leg for them to stand on, but because they made the flight paths and alignment public early on its getting bogged down in politics. YSBK has always been on a finite time frame, Sydney is enclosing it, at least its another airport that will kill it, rather than its training areas being filled with ever spreading housing.

Bankstown has been doomed since it was privatised, the first week showed there wouldn't be a future for aviation there anymore.

I absolutely agree with ACMS. The new airport in Sydney needs to be built to continue to support the cities growth and the simple fact is that Bankstown is in the way of this and is of far lesser concern.

If we're going to direct any efforts surrounding this I'd recommend that telling them to consider Bankstown in their planning of the Airports design or operations is utter folly and will lead nowhere. Instead, we should be pressuring the Government to put together funding for the re-location of the various organisations that call Bankstown home. This only seems fair, they are removing their place of operations to support what is a financial asset being created. It's not too dissimilar to the Government deciding to build a highway through a person's home, they don't just turn up one day with bulldozers and tell them too bad, they buy it at a "Fair rate".

Hence as said before they should really have added a GA runway where the second runway will be, just as an interim as the second runway is probably 50 years off anyway. Add the necessary infrastructure for the GA charter/aeromeds/freight even private parking to use that and segregate ops. Training is going to be uneconomical apart from maybe navigation PPL/CPL/IFR training. Once those operators are relocated YSBK has next to no purpose, as well as the operators now getting access to ILS and GBAS etc...

And as said before, there's no political will nor capability to do it. The mob currently running the show are having a hard enough time building a passenger terminal and a serviceable runway as it is.. there's no way they could handle throwing GA into the mix - they'd go into meltdown!

Besides, even if they did, the landing fees and fuel surcharge would make this the most expensive GA airport in Australia.

There's no way the NSW Government is going to pay anything to relocate anyone away from Bankstown.. they'd rather it die naturally than do that.

But don't underestimate SMA - they've spent quite a few $$$ lately improving infrastructure around the place and have enough government support and enough established on-airport leaseholders wanting to stay that Bankstown, as an airport, isn't going away anytime soon. It may get smaller if they dig up a runway or two and sell the land to pay their bills and may eventually disappear if WSI proves as popular as some claim, but that's a really big maybe and isn't for decades yet anyway.

One proposal for a relocation of Jandakot was exactly that, the sale of the original site covering the cost of the new airport and relocation. That was ended as the businesses did not want to be significantly further away from Perth, especially the aeromedical services, as well as the new site having significant opposition to a new/busy airport at that location.

Exactly. As is common all over the world, ground transport is the biggest problem with airport location near our largest cities. The only solution is (like they with Tullamarine and Brisbane Airports) to plan and build the freeways direct to site first - but that simply isn't going to happen for any smaller regional airport these days because there isn't the pax/freight numbers to warrant it. NIMBY. So they might as well stay right where they are until commercial development entirely over-runs them.

The truth is, just as they do for most infrastructure projects, successive governments have let our major cities outgrow the need for their airports. For WSI to succeed, it really should have been built last century when there was nothing but cows and perhaps a few sheep around to wonder what the fuss was all about.

PC. WSI was thought about last Centuary. It’s just that with the wheels of bureaucracy and political rocks in the cogs
it takes decades to come to fruition. Albo was dead against it way back when.
since Oz has never had a national infrastructure plan for aviation and airports its just ad hoc, cobble up as we go.
She’ll be right..with muck ups and mega bucks.

If you want to explore the possibilities placed on the table earlier in the discussion, you would find the General Aviation Study Sydney Region (GASSR) 1986 (if I remember the title and date correctly) and, probably not as accessible, if at all, the Defence proposal concerning Richmond of the same year. The NSW RAPAC meetings that year were full of fun!

Gne.