[Peetwo]

The slow death of the local airport -  

Between cashed up developers, Chinese investors and encroaching building/wind farm developments - what used to be regarded as essential infrastructure - the local town airport will continue to go the way of the Dodo bird...

Via the Oz today:

Aviation outrage over Chinese ownership of Merredin airport

The sign outside Merredin aerodrome. Picture: Colin Murty

The Australian
12:00AM December 27, 2017
[size=undefined]ANDREW BURRELL

WA Chief Reporter
Perth
@AndrewBurrell7[/size]


Merredin airport in Western Australia is effectively under the control of a Chinese government enterprise, prompting outrage in aviation circles, as safety concerns shut down its pilot training school.

The airport’s runways, control tower, hangars and all of its assets are 50 per cent owned, and may soon be fully owned, by China’s biggest airline, state-owned China Southern Airlines.

In 1993, the secretive company quietly paid $1 to the WA government to lease the airport for 100 years to use as a base to train thousands of Chinese pilots for employment in the world’s fastest- growing aviation market.

In recent years it has owned the flight school with Canadian company CAE.

So far, more than 2000 pilots have graduated from the ­facility, making it China Southern Airlines’ biggest training base in the world.

For an Australian town’s sole airstrip to be effectively controlled by the Chinese government is unusual.

Anyone who wishes to land at the aerodrome, 260km east of Perth, must seek approval from the flying school. Locals say permission has never been denied, but aviation veteran and businessman Dick Smith believes the airport should not be owned by a foreign company or government.

“It is outrageous that an Aussie pilot can’t go to a country airport without getting approval from the Chinese to land there,” he said.

“I’ve never heard of this happening anywhere.” In recent months, however, the Chinese flying school has suspended its operations in WA after the Civil Aviation Safety Authority raised safety concerns.

Aviation industry sources say the company has continued to pay millions of dollars in wages — without any students — since March this year.

One source said he believed a dispute between Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines and CAE could lead to China Southern taking full ownership of the flying school within months.

A spokesman for China Southern West Australian Flying College declined to comment.

Merredin shire president Ken Hooper said nobody in town had been able to find out when the flying school would reopen.

“It’s quite important for our economy here but we just can’t get any information,” he said.

A CASA spokesman said the regulator would not publicly discuss details of its dealings with aviation organisations unless serious action was taken, such as suspending or cancelling a certificate.

“CASA and China Southern have been working to address identified safety and regulatory issues over a period of time,” the spokesman said. “CASA is hopeful that China Southern can meet all requirements as soon as possible.”

There is broader concern in the aviation industry about growing foreign ownership and control of pilot training schools in Australia.

With a looming shortage of commercial pilots predicted, there are fears Australia will have to import pilots while foreign-controlled pilot schools in this country send their graduates to China and elsewhere in Asia. At the same time, flight schools claim they are being crippled by skyrocketing costs and over-regulation.

And an update to the Cobden airport debacle, via the Warrnambool 'Standard' :

Fight for Cobden airport's future hits close to home for Corangamite Shire mayor Jo Beard

• Kate Zwagerman
  

RELATED: Fresh plans for wind farm puts airport in nosedive
RELATED: Planning Minister responds to wind farm worry
RELATED: SOS sent out for airstrip


Taking a stand: Jan O'Connell, Eunie Dawe, Paul Moloney, Warren Ponting, Helen Watts and Stan Williams on the runway at Cobden airport. Picture: Morgan Hancock

RELATED: Cobden airstrip’s role as a lifeline

Corangamite Shire mayor Jo Beard’s reasons for opposing a 12-turbine wind farm that threatens the future of Cobden’s airfield are personal.

The airport has always been part of the Cobden local’s backyard, but its role as a vital community asset was brought home when her husband, Daniel, was involved in a serious car crash.

“It will be 20 years next year that… my husband was involved in a fatality car accident where two people were killed. He was probably one of the worst of the survivors and he was airlifted out of the Cobden airstrip,” she said.

“By the time he got to Melbourne they had to revive him. If he did not have that air ambulance taking him out of Cobden down to Melbourne... he wouldn’t be around.”

She said the strip remained an important landing site for the fixed-wing air ambulance, as well as the helicopter.

Cr Beard also pointed to the council-owned strip’s role in supporting aerial fire-fighting, agricultural spraying and tourism.

Cr Beard told this week’s Corangamite Shire council meeting that she would be standing up with her community and “fighting really hard to make sure that airstrip is still there”.

Plans for the Naroghid wind farm, located directly north of the Cobden airport, are being considered by the state Planning Minister. Corangamite councillors voted to lodge a submission objecting to the project.

Allinta Energy is behind the project, which would build 12 turbines measuring 180 metres high. The closest turbines would be about 2.5 kilometres from the runway, limiting the ability to take off and land and risking the strip’s future registration as a code one airfield.

Cr Lesley Brown said giving the Planning Minister control of wind farm approvals meant there was often little consideration of local people.

“I find it difficult to understand that the state government is the only authority to decide where these wind farms are located,” she said.


Corangamite Shire mayor Jo Beard. Picture: Rob Gunstone

Cr Helen Durant said the airport provided an important service to the community, businesses and emergency services.

“I hope that common sense will prevail because if it doesn’t and the future of the airstrip is threatened than nothing will stand in the way of inappropriate sited wind towers in the future,” she said.

Cr Neil Trotter said the Planning Minister should “use his power to veto this forthwith”.

Cobden Aero Club member Duncan Morris thanked the council for supporting the strip in its submission.

The airstrip hosted a community day last weekend, with hundreds of people and about 40 planes flying in to show support. Mr Morris said a petition had received about 400 signatures within a couple of days.

“The wind farm commissioner came to our airport and had a look first-hand at what we saw as the troubles. He may not have the final decision, but I’d rather being going into this with his support rather than without it,” he said. “I suspect we’ll get his support.”

Mr Morris said the aero club and hangar owners group were also making a joint submission on the wind farm, which is being drafted up Sydney-based aviation lawyers.

Cobrico dairy farmer Angela Molloy told Tuesday night’s council meeting that the wind farm could impact her family’s right to farm.

“We have three turbines adjacent to our residence, with the first turbine 1.07 kilometres from our house,” she said.

Mrs Molloy said the farm’s fertiliser spreading was contracted to an aerial spraying company operating from the airport, which would not continue if the wind farm went ahead.

“The loss of this spreading pertains to a loss of $70,000 a year. Nothing a dairy farmer can withstand,” she said.

Mrs Molloy also raised concerns over shadow flicker, aviation lighting that could impact on sleep, and planning discrepancies found in the map of the Naroghid wind farm. 

“When I first did a drive-by with another lady we found 40 houses missing off this map. This map has been in circulation since 2006 and we want to know why it hasn’t been picked up. It is disgusting. Where or how has any of this got through without someone checking it?” Mrs Molloy said.

“We now have a planning consultant that has cost us more money and he has found eight houses that range from 1.5 to three kilometres missing off the Naroghid wind farm map.”

Mrs Molloy said they had also received no communication from the wind farm company.
“Because we are objecting we’ve never heard from them,” she said.

MTF...P2