[Peetwo]

Of making airports great again

This one sort of snuck in below the ILS so to speak, back in September. Australian Airports Association release.

They have completed a study which indicates that regional airports are underfunded by around $180m per year. That has a flow-down affect on a stifled aviation economy, loss of productivity, strangulation of businesses and increase in safety risks.
Release;

MEDIA RELEASE
30 September 2016

AAA CALLS FOR ACTION ON REGIONAL AIRPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

Many regional airports around Australia are facing the prospect of no longer being able to provide critical aviation services for their local region and communities without immediate government assistance, according to landmark research study commissioned by the Australian Airports Association (AAA).

ACIL Allen has completed the first ever quantitative assessment of the economic contribution of regional airports across Australia and the financial challenges they face in operating and maintaining these facilities.

CEO of the AAA, Caroline Wilkie, welcomed the recognition of the economic and social contribution made to regional Australia by its airports, but warned that inadequate government funding could threaten their viability.

‘The findings of this study confirm what the industry has known anecdotally for many years,’ said Ms Wilkie.

‘Regional airports play a crucial role in connecting our regional and remote communities with the rest of the country whether it is for the provision of essential and emergency services, business, or education.’

‘However, over the next decade, many regional airports will simply not be able to generate sufficient revenue to fund critical maintenance and infrastructure works to enable them to continue to meet the needs of the communities they serve,’ Ms Wilkie said.

The Regional Airport Infrastructure Study found that:

• Regional airports across Australia invested $185 million in the 2015 financial year to maintain and improve airport operations and employed 1720 FTEs. This induced another $83.4 million in spending in the rest of the Australian economy and created an additional 2750 jobs;
• Due to the high cost, low revenue nature of many regional airports, the local councils that own and operate them often face significant financial stress from simply maintaining the airport to a satisfactory and safe condition. This stress is compounded when upgrades are needed to meet future aviation needs;
• On average, 61% of regional airports had budget deficits in the 2015 financial year, with non-RPT airports suffering the most with their costs exceeding their revenues by an average of 45.6%;
• To compound these financial difficulties, expenditures at regional airports are expected to rise by 38% over the next decade;
• Nearly 40% of regional airports expect persistent budget deficits over the next decade; and
• Across Australia’s network of approximately 400 regional airports, it is expected that the annual budget deficit will be $17 million per year, equating to a $170 million shortfall in essential infrastructure and maintenance funding at regional airports over the next decade.

In response to the study, AAA is calling on Government to address the funding shortfall facing many essential regional airports across Australia.

The AAA action plan proposes:

1) The Commonwealth Government amend the scope and funding allocated to the existing Regional Aviation Access Program (RAAP) and Remote Airstrip Upgrade (RAU) program to:

a) be accessible to a wider range of regional airports, including those with RPT services up to 400,000 annual passengers;
b) be used for critical maintenance works, as well as essential aeronautical infrastructure projects;
c) review the requirement for Commonwealth funding being contingent on an equal funding contribution from the applicant; and
d) increase the funding from $33.7 million over the next three years, to $70 million over the next four years in the 2017-18 Budget.

2) The Commonwealth Government consider the development of a National Regional Airport Infrastructure Loan Facility (open to all regional airports) that provides concessional loans and affordable financing for essential aeronautical infrastructure and maintenance works.

(This facility could operate in a similar manner to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility but on a smaller scale and administered by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development)

3) State and Territory Governments to review current airport financial assistance programmes, with a focus on creating or expanding existing airport funding and financing opportunities.

‘Now is the time to take a long-term, strategic view of regional airport infrastructure investment to ensure Australia’s regions remain competitive, livable and sustainable,’ Ms Wilkie said.

Article by Herr Bingers;

Regional airports under strain: ACIL Aallen report for AAA

• MITCHELL BINGEMANN
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 30, 2016
  

Projected increase in expenditure.

The nation’s peak airport association has called on state and federal governments to increase funding to Australia’s regional airports after a new report found that three in five are under serious ­financial strain.

The Australian Airports Association enlisted ACIL Allen Consulting to conduct a study into the economic contribution of the nation’s 400 regional airports and found that on average there was a 6 per cent funding gap between the costs and revenues they brought in each year.

The report opened the accounting books on 36 airports across Australia to understand the challenges and economic contributions they made to regional communities.

In doing so, it found that many regional airports in Australia were operating at a loss each year and were heavily dependent upon cross-subsidisation by their local government owners.

Some 61 per cent of Australia’s regional airports had budget deficits in 2014-15, with about 40 per cent expecting to have those ­deficits continue over the next 10 years.
The funding deficits facing many regional airports come from requirements to continually invest in infrastructure, including lighting and runways that must ­always be in good condition to ­ensure safety.

The report found that the cost of complying with regulations was also proportionately greater in the overall budget of regional airports than for capital city airports — often by a factor of three (12 per cent versus 4 per cent, on average).

“Some of the regional airports experiencing persistent funding gaps will find themselves under increasing financial pressure that might ultimately result in their closure and cessation of operations and service provision,” the report said.

Caroline Wilkie, the chief executive of the Australian Airports Association, said the findings of the report confirmed what the industry has known for many years — that many regional airports across Australia do not have adequate funding to maintain or improve infrastructure.

While state governments and the commonwealth already have active funding programs in place for regional airports, the AAA says more needs to be done.
According to the report, across Australia’s regional airport network, the annual budget deficit has been tallied at $17 million a year, meaning the airports will need some $170m over the next decade to break even.

“The AAA believes it is critical for the federal government to continue to provide, and increase, fin­ancial assistance for regional airports.

“This assistance is vital for ­regional airports to ensure they can continue facilitating essential air transport services for their communities,” Ms Wilkie said.

“Without this assistance, the consequences for regional airports of continual financial deficits over the coming decade will be severe. The impacts could range from substantial reductions in ­aviation services through to ­closures of airports, which for a ­regional community would be a devastating loss, from both an economic and social connectivity perspective.”

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester welcomed the report, saying it would help to shape the government’s plans for the aviation sector.

“Airports are critical pieces of infrastructure for the economic and social life of the one-third of Australians who live outside our capital cities,” he said.

“I’ve previously met with the AAA and had very positive discussions about the issues raised in its Regional Airport Infrastructure report. As a regionally based MP, I well appreciate the issues faced by airports in regional areas and look forward to working with the AAA on a range of issues.”

So it's no real surprise when you see that;

- The big airports are a monopoly, a rort, a gouge, and been flogged off by government.
- The smaller regionals are being strangled by compliance, old infrastructure, many are Council owned (and local Government couldn't fix a pothole properly let alone manage an airport), and they simply don't have enough coin rolling in through the door.
- While tools like Malcolm 'Goldman Sachs' Turnbull look after big business and award $50b submarine contracts, our airports are turning to shit. Government has priorities you say? Yeah right.

Shit airports. Shit roads. Shit highways. Shit schools. Everything infrastructure wise in this country is becoming antiquated, buggered, use and abused, suffers from piss-poor future planning, and on top of that ends up in a ministerial portfolio in which the people with oversight are normally nothing more than trough dwellers who have sucked and bribed their way into Government, or spent years knifing, plotting and destroying and manipulating others so they can get their own ringside seat at the trough. Neither they nor their minions know SFA about the portfolio, have no technical or industry skill in that particular area of business, and then people wonder why everything has turned to shit!

Tick Tock

This bit from miniscule NFI Dazzling Dazza...

“Airports are critical pieces of infrastructure for the economic and social life of the one-third of Australians who live outside our capital cities,” he said.

“I’ve previously met with the AAA and had very positive discussions about the issues raised in its Regional Airport Infrastructure report. As a regionally based MP, I well appreciate the issues faced by airports in regional areas and look forward to working with the AAA on a range of issues.”

...makes you want to vomit because it is pure unadulterated bollocks...

If 4D was actually sincere about the above statement then you would think that he would have responded by accompanying the AAA MR with a presser from his own office?? But for some reason that didn't occur, see HERE.


MTF...P2