Re: Holistic Govt Rail decisions ????

[dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David Bromage)]

Ashley Wright (ajwright@ozemail.com.au) wrote:
> Who other then QANTAS, Ansett, Impulse and soon to be Virgin Blue fly
> SYD/MEL. If there are any others out there then they should be
> banished to start with

Spirit and CityJet are other startup hopefuls, although both have been
rather quiet since Impulse and Virgin became public.

It would be illegal to prohibit an airline from flying a sector simply
because you you think there are too many airlines flying. Even if it was
legal, it wouldn't be politically acceptable.

> Don't get me wrong I
> think the feds should fund part if not all of a SYD/CBR/MEL high speed
> rail link, I just cannot see how using Davids calculations you could
> say that the slots freed up would make that much difference to not
> need Badgerys creek.

VHST pushes the choke point of Kingsford Smith airport by about 25-30
years under current operating conditions. Taking a significant portion
(though not necessarily the majority) of Canberra, Wagga, Albury and
Melbourne traffic frees up over 18% of the slots (over 130 slots per day).

Don't forget that a slot is a slot regardless of whether it's a Qantas 767
with 200 pax for Melbourne or a Country Connection Piper Chiefton with 9
pax for Wagga. Either way, it frees up slots for growing traffic from
places not served by the VHST, including internationals.

If you also extend the VHST to Brisbane you push the choke point out
another 25 years. This also frees up slots taken by flights to Newcastle,
Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast.

The arrangements at Kingsford Smith are stupid anyway, as it's only the
52nd busiest airport in the world with 281,000 movements per year. There
are 11 airports with over 500,000 movements per year, and 4 with over
750,000. The #1 is Atlanta Hartsfield with 909,000 movements per year.

If Sydney was run properly, you wouldn't need Badgerey's Creek even
without VHST. The Badgerey's opponents know this, but it's even more
politically unacceptable to increase the use of KSA. A recently suggestion
to move some of the regionals to Bankstown was also howled down.

Cheers
David