[Peetwo]

Sydney Airport Demand Management Amendment Bill 2024 Inquiry?? -

About this inquiry

The Bill amends the Sydney Airport Demand Management Act 1997 which regulates the allocation and use of slots for aircraft to take off and land at Sydney Airport. The bill intends to increase efficiency of aircraft movements within the current movement caps. The bill also seeks to address anti-competitive behaviour by producing a stricter compliance regime around the slot allocation to reduce the potential for slot-hoarding and slot-misuse.

If you ever wanted to get an idea of where the real power lies in the Aviation industry, which is fully backed and professionally obfuscated by the associated Mandarins and their minions residing in various silos under the Canberra bubble, check some of the following witnesses and the evidence given to the Sydney Airport Demand Management Amendment Bill 2024 inquiry...

Qantas:

RAAA/FlyPelican :

FedEx:

AAA/YSCB/YSSY:

ASA:

See Hansard for the ACCC and Betsy's Duck-up Fairies - HERE.

However, for evidence that was actually factual while challenging the status quo of the aviation industry elite, IMO you can't go past the COG (Capacity Optimisation Group) segment with CEO Ms Popovac, even Sterlo was impressed...

CHAIR: I now welcome representatives of Capacity Optimisation Group. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to Senate committees has been provided to you both. I ask both of you if you'd like to make a brief opening statement before we go to questions.

Ms Popovac : Thank you for allowing our company to appear today. In my address, I'll be speaking from a place of truth and fact. Something has been lacking in the public rhetoric around slots in recent times. The Capacity Optimisation Group is supportive of the changes to the Sydney Airport Demand Management Act. We're especially supportive of the changes to increase the transparency of the slot process. COG has always been extremely transparent with the stakeholders involved in the slot management process, and it allocates slots and provides data in accordance with the SADMA and the WASG.

CHAIR: The SADM?

Ms Popovac : The Sydney Airport Demand Management Act.

CHAIR: And the other one?

Ms Popovac : Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines.

CHAIR: Beautiful. That's not for me; that's for everyone else out there!

Ms Popovac : No problems. We've just heard it a lot today, so I thought I'd make it shorter.

CHAIR: It was for me!

Ms Popovac : However, viewing the misinformation and fabricated narratives spread by some members of the public across the media has highlighted just how little is understood about this highly technical and nuanced global system. I specifically question the remarks made by Rod Sims, as it is evident he lacks knowledge on the topic and is providing misleading information to the public.

The truth of the matter is that Sydney is not a congested airport. There are slots available throughout the day. Rex received excellent slots in the peak for their domestic services, only to hand some back as they did not have the fleet to operate the slots they held. Bonza never asked for a single slot at Sydney, so they had no grounds to claim a slot issue at Sydney. They did, however, apply for—and were granted—slots in Darwin and Melbourne, so they knew what the process was.

Over the last few years all new entrant airlines into Sydney have received slots at times close to what they requested. The facts I have presented show that there is no slot issue in Sydney. In fact, Sydney is one of the least congested airports that we coordinate. Over the last 20 years we've coordinated 47 airports in seven different countries. We have seen many highly congested airports, and Sydney is not one of them.

COG also supports measures in the new bill to shine a light on reasons for airline cancellations—a new reporting requirement in the entire industry—and the strengthening of the justified non-utilisation of slots criteria, through a specific register for reasons for JNUS. Measures include reviewing parts of the JNUS, such as the Australian holiday period, and agreeing on a method that will ensure fair use of the slot whilst continuing to support vital regional operations in off-peak periods. COG is also supportive of the changes to the compliance process at Sydney—something we've been passionate about improving for the last 10 years. COG is also supportive of improving data integrity by aligning data collection from a single source across the industry in Australia.

We as a company have also heard the perceived conflicts with our company structure. We were set up 25 years ago in the same manner as other international coordinators, such as the UK. However, what differs is that those coordinators, like the UK, are protected by their government and not subject to competitive processes, unlike Sydney. We realised that, like the SADM, we needed to move with the times. With our new name comes a new independent chair, a new independent director and a willingness to change our perceived conflicts.

We've always allocated slots in a neutral, non-discriminatory and independent manner and we will continue to do so. We will continue to set the bar for slot coordination worldwide, with our fair and professional practices ensuring that we most effectively allocate the available capacity at all of our airports. We will continue to be audited by our clients, including Sydney Airport, that noted from an audit of our coordination this year that they would have lost opportunities through poorer capacity utilisation had they, or others, performed the allocation. We will continue to be industry leaders and to provide high-quality coordination using our experienced and skilled Australian staff. We will continue our advocacy work around the world to help coordinators, airlines, airports and regulators improve coordination practices.

As CEO of COG and Chair of the Worldwide Airport Slots Board, I'm proud to represent our company and country on industry boards. Our strong reputation has led us to these prominent roles, allowing us to make a significant impact in the industry. Thank you for your time, and I invite your thoughtful questions.

CHAIR: Thank you, Ms Popovac. You certainly didn't hold back; we should've started with you today. That would've been really interesting.

Closely followed by Mr Peter Harris in a private capacity (author of the Harris Review):

Mr Harris : I have formerly been responsible for transport policy in the 1990s out of the department, including the development of the original slot scheme and the act and regulations that supported it. I retired from the Australian government at the end of 2018. In 2020 I was asked by the department to come back and review the scheme as it stood, because the Productivity Commission—which was my former home between 2013 and 2018—had recommended in 2019 that there be a further review of the scheme related to some aspects of it, which the Productivity Commission had expressed doubts about in terms of the impact on efficiency at Sydney airport. The department, when asking me to do this, pointed out that the legislation was due to sunset in 2024, and therefore asked me if I could make sure the report effectively addressed the review that has to take place before the sunsetting regulation is renewed. I did that over a period of about three or four months at the end of 2020 and January 2021, and completed this report, I think, in the first week of February 2021, and the department published it at some later point.

I should clarify for the committee: I haven't been engaged by the department since then in any sense and have not had any role in the development of this legislation. But I have re-read the report in the last few days, just to familiarise myself, and I looked at the bill that's in front of you and a few other things, and I can see some clear linkages between the report and the legislation that's in front of you today.

In terms of my opening statement, that was the bulk of what I was going to say to you anyway. But the bottom line is this: the report I made to the government in 2021 showed that the scheme had been set in regulation rather than, as is the case for most capacity constrained airports around the world, developed via a cooperative scheme that then can evolve and, because our regulation was fixed, this scheme has not evolved since 1997. It's a very long time. As a consequence, as I pointed out to the government, the regional ring fence that has protected regional access to Sydney airport had an unexpected cost. They included poorer quality choices for starting new regional services or improving schedules—and that's because a fence not only keeps predators out but keeps the protected stock in, if you like—and stranding of slots inside the ring fence that could not practically be accessed by any airline, making the airport less efficient and potentially reducing employment and investment in associated dependent industries, like tourism. We used a priority system in allocating slots amongst applicants that was world leading at the time in 1997 but today gives much weaker support to new competition than occurs at similar capacity constrained airports around the world. On the question of ensuring airlines comply with their obligations under the capping process, we leave too much responsibility in the scheme to a form of self-regulation managed by the compliance committee. It is weaker, again, than what occurs now at similar airports around the world. We have an operational cap applied by Airservices Australia every 15 minutes, which creates an unnecessary delay to passengers, with no reduction in noise impacts. It was put in place originally to ensure that airlines respected the compliance process but is unnecessary today. Finally, because of that construct, we've prevented Airservices Australia from having opportunities to assist the airport to recover from security or weather shocks.

Those are the primary elements in my report to the government. Not being the author of the legislation, I'm not here to answer specifically for it, but I can see some substantial similarities to some of the things that I had recommended.

CHAIR: Thank you. And the biggest issues for Sydney airport?

Mr Harris : I think the biggest issue for Sydney airport is to maintain community support. I think this is a little bit of a shock to people who, today, look at a highly regulated scheme for access, like we have at the airport, and think that it's probably unnecessary now. The community definitely demanded it in 1996 and 1997. When we were developing the original scheme, there was a substantial amount of opposition to it and queries as to whether or not it would actually help to manage flows—in other words, to enable air traffic control to switch the airport around at times of lesser movements to share the noise, as it were, across the Sydney basin. It's pretty clear now that, though the community demanded a regulatory structure in 1996 and 1997, the value in preserving it today, which I did say in my report should happen, is primarily because the community has accepted that the scheme does help to manage aircraft noise and enables, therefore, this balance of cooperative existence to occur between people who are affected by aircraft noise and consumers and businesses that supply them that need access to the airport.

MTF...P2

PS: Note the following ASA AQON...



Kind of backs up the COG CEO evidence provided...