Comments on: Sydney’s airport problem goes from Badgery’s to worse

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

None of the options are pretty. When you live in Asia and fly into Sydney early in the morning the feeling that you have just arrived at a “disaster zone” is cemented. The queues for Immigration, the huge dreadful backlog to go through customs/quarantine, since they imposed the 100% xray with far too few machines. Then when you pay the avaricious prices that Mac Bank have imposed for car parking - its not the 15 hour trip from LA or the 9 hours from BKK, but the whole “arriving in Sydney” experience leaves you all reamed out. Unfortunately VIP’s miss the experience and therefore NEVER realise the mess they allow to happen.
Shutt the Kurnell refinery - build the airport extension there ( build parallel runways to the two existing Kingsford Smith Runways there). Remove Qantas offices offsite in Alexandria and putt a car park and train terminal there with a rapid transit tunnel under the bay to terminals 3/4?. Dont Say that the airport would be worse environmentally than the Refinery.

By: Ben At Crikey

Ben At Crikey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

To mention a few of the Sydney issues other than the political, the airport embraced the inefficiency of two intersecting runways, meaning it can never run all three full bore full length. As sole airport it takes small slow planes that can hold up four or more large jet movements. It faces the dire US airport issue of not having enough gates to match movements, meaning flights get stuck sometimes for a long time waiting for a gate to become free, which US winters don’t help either. Unless an alternative airport in the Sydney basin opens ASAP this curse at big US airports will add to the inefficiency at the main airport even without snow. The merit of a turboprop strip near Kurnell with a road link via a short tunnel to La Perouse or Port Botany would be reasonable regional connections and more efficiency from a two out of three runway operation.

By: John

John — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

What is the real problem at Sydney airport, apart from politics? Sydney has three runways and handles about 29 million passengers. Heathrow has two runways and handles 67 million passengers, albeit groaning at the edges. Hong Kong has two runways and manages 48 million passengers. I am a very regular traveller to Sydney and I don’t think i have seen all three runways operating at the same time. The obvious question is why? The answer, of course, is political. Most major US airports operate all available runways in peak times - San Francisco and LA have four, and use them concurrently at peak times, which greatly reduces wait times on the ground. Time for a more open and honest discussion about the airport, rather than more window dressing and political side-stepping of the aircraft noise issue.

By: Ben at Crikey

Ben at Crikey — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

There have been reports in the past claiming the refinery is nearing the end of its economic life and needs replacement, not necessarily at the Kurnell site. If true this is an opportunity. However the area that suits development on any scale as a supplementary airport lies further west of the refinery and desalination plant, thus avoiding conflicts with traffic patterns at Kingsford Smith. Care needs to be taken with the mangrove areas, however the sites involved would allow a net expansion of mangrove habitats by creating mangrove friendly wetlands extensions to the NW. With common sense and good will this is achievable. So it’s damn hard. Yet probably no where as hard as expanding or exploiting Bankstown for jets even in the interim.