New Canberra airport news

[connieguy]

Photo gallery: New Canberra Airport terminal gears up for international flights - Flights | hotels | frequent flyer | business class - Australian Business Traveller

Gotta say this looks really good.

 

[samh004]

The new terminal will mirror the Southern Concourse Terminal, opened late last year and currently used by Qantas and Jetstar.

And here I was thinking JQ didn't fly to CBR. Despite not advertising flights there, they must.


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[aus_flyer]

And here I was thinking JQ didn't fly to CBR. Despite not advertising flights there, they must.

They don't.... must be in the pipeline!

 

[samh004]

They don't.... must be in the pipeline!

Sorry, I was being flippant, I forgot the

 

[Skyring]

Fully enclosed taxi rank? Wonder how that's going to work. They'd better have some superefficient ventilation. As a cabbie I'm very reluctant to switch off my car. In winter I'll very quickly cool down and in summer, boil. Besides, cabbing is rough on a car; the amount of electrics and stuff we have drains the battery pretty quick, and if you turn a line of cabs off while waiting for infrequent planes, you're going to need to haul some of them off to one side for resuscitation when the plane comes in and there's a hundred people all wanting a cab at once.

Not joking about waiting times. I've often been stuck out at the airport waiting a couple of hours for a fare. Sometimes I read a book, sometimes I fall asleep and my brother cabbies quietly sneak their vehicles around me.

Now the taxi surcharge is $3.20 - $2 for parking and $1.20 for the commissionaires. A Silver Service pickup costs $22 on top of the fare.

The whole business of pickup is over-regulated. For a normal driver (i.e. non-cabbie) it is almost impossible to pick up a passenger without either paying a couple of dollars for parking or breaking the rules in some manner. Picking up from the drop off area, for instance. Or the bus stop or loading zone. Or somewhere on one of the roads, thereby blocking traffic. Or on some random patch of construction zone.

Why can't the airport management adopt the cellphone waiting area that works so well in the US?

And why can't Canberra implement a shuttle system? About half the airport work is to or from city hotels, Parliament House, or various public service offices, such as Tax.

 

[harvyk]

I highly doubt we will see international flights from Canberra (ignoring the 3 months which FJ ran a NAN service). ADL has 3 times the population than CBR and doesn't have the easy driving access to SYD like CBR does (most of the CBR-SYD shuttle busses offer SYD airport dropoff \ pickup), and yet ADL only has a few token int flights.

All that said, I do like the current changes happening to CBR airport.

 

[connieguy]

I highly doubt we will see international flights from Canberra (ignoring the 3 months which FJ ran a NAN service). ADL has 3 times the population than CBR and doesn't have the easy driving access to SYD like CBR does (most of the CBR-SYD shuttle busses offer SYD airport dropoff \ pickup), and yet ADL only has a few token int flights.

All that said, I do like the current changes happening to CBR airport.

I remember my first flight into Canberra and the baggage carts being driven straight from the aircraft to the outside, front, right end of the terminal, so you could walk over and pick up your bag from the cart. 1971 I think it was. Looks to have changed a bit since then. :shock:

 

[Hvr]

International flights would be awesome, a JQ status run to SIN/BKK would be just the ticket.

I would love to see an A380 land here, I would leave work to see that.

 

[stryker]

International flights would be awesome, a JQ status run to SIN/BKK would be just the ticket.

Would cost heaps more than a status run to NAN in true J. Maybe you haven't caught up with the new JQ pricing.

As for pick up parking, I always arrange to be picked up in a free public car park in the business centre. OK, so it's a 3 minute walk, but hey, no hassles...

 

[dajop]

and yet ADL only has a few token int flights.

To be fair ADL has a few token QF intl flights. Other airlines seem to make it work better. Daily services to SIN and from HKG, along with pretty frequent AKL & KUL services seem reasonable for a city of its size and arguably small international appeal.

Now CBR ... thats a different question, highly doubt it! But who knows, now that VA/NZ are coordinating maybe a govt-govt shuttle to WLG?

 

[Timba-Jet]

The plans look impressive, especially the soaring high glass atrium.

If the gov't ever decide to invest in long term public transport links and build a high speed CBR-SYD rail link, CBR could be an alternative to arriving into Kingsford smith.

 

[elbarto]

I'm getting tired of listening to these jokers half-coughd attempts to convince us that CBR is an alternative to SYD. They've been saying that flight to Singapore and China are just a 'few years away' for the past decade. The government poo-pooed high speed rail back in the 90's after approving it and then deciding it would cost too much to build and then threw it in the too hard basket. And if CBR wants to be come a credible alternative to Sydney it will have to do massive redevelopment, with potentially the need for another runway. Which will bring out all the NIMBYs from Jerrabomberra who will complain about aircraft noise despite the fact that flights landed over that area well before their homes were ever built and that they purchased a house right underneath the final approach path.

 

[straitman]

I remember my first flight into Canberra and the baggage carts being driven straight from the aircraft to the outside, front, right end of the terminal, so you could walk over and pick up your bag from the cart. 1971 I think it was. Looks to have changed a bit since then. :shock:

In 1971 I was on the other side of the airfield in Canberra learning to fly Iroquois Helicopters. -- Ancient history now :!:

 

[jamesatfish]

Whilst the new terminal in CBR is a huge improvement over the old one (notwithstanding the fact that the QP gets the great view over the tarmac whilst the J lounge overlooks a multi-story carpark), I don't know why they still bother pretending it's an international airport.

I don't believe there's enough demand for any regular international flights out of Canberra, and I don't see why airlines and the airport would invest in the facilities for a '1-3 flights per week' international service. The previous attempts at international flights out of CBR were short-lived - I think the only full international flight ever taken out of CBR was when the ACT Government chartered an aircraft to fly people directly to the Brumbies finals in NZ during the early 2000s.

Not to mention of course the lack of a First lounge in CBR, and the airport's inability to accept aircraft large enough to have true international seating (either First class or true lie-flat Business), means that any international flight taken out of CBR will be catering to the low-cost airline crowd rather than the business and government travellers who seem to provide most of CBR's domestic traffic. For me at least, I'd prefer to connect through Sydney and take advantage of the better lounge and aircraft options even if there was a direct flight to my destination from CBR.

 

[harvyk]

Whilst the new terminal in CBR is a huge improvement over the old one (notwithstanding the fact that the QP gets the great view over the tarmac whilst the J lounge overlooks a multi-story carpark), I don't know why they still bother pretending it's an international airport.

I don't believe there's enough demand for any regular international flights out of Canberra, and I don't see why airlines and the airport would invest in the facilities for a '1-3 flights per week' international service. The previous attempts at international flights out of CBR were short-lived - I think the only full international flight ever taken out of CBR was when the ACT Government chartered an aircraft to fly people directly to the Brumbies finals in NZ during the early 2000s.

Not to mention of course the lack of a First lounge in CBR, and the airport's inability to accept aircraft large enough to have true international seating (either First class or true lie-flat Business), means that any international flight taken out of CBR will be catering to the low-cost airline crowd rather than the business and government travellers who seem to provide most of CBR's domestic traffic. For me at least, I'd prefer to connect through Sydney and take advantage of the better lounge and aircraft options even if there was a direct flight to my destination from CBR.

FJ did a 3 times per week Nan service in 2004 for 3 months, so for a brief time it was an international airport.
A lack of F Lounge doesn't really make any difference, and they can easily land a B747 there (I've seen several B747's there this year alone).

The big thing is demand, its one thing to fly B747's from CBR right around the world. That can easily be done. It's quite another to make sure each seat is full, the cargo bay is full, and the airline makes money from the flight, and it can be repeated day in day out.

Considering that the average Canberran (regardless of wealth) thinks nothing of travelling up to SYD even by car for the day CBR has a big job to convince the average Canberran that the small number of direct international flights from CBR are worth it. Keep in mind, the direct flight from CBR not only needs to be at a convenient time \ day for the person, the return flight also needs to be at a convenient time \ day for the person.

The other point is that not only does there need to be a convenient number of flights, but they need to have a service level similar to what one would get out of SYD. I and quite a few others I know will fly CBR-PER via either SYD or MEL because the experience (and timings) will be better than the direct flight from CBR.

 

[jamesatfish]

they can easily land a B747 there (I've seen several B747's there this year alone).

Is CBR rated sufficiently for regular B747 service? I know the airport went through an upgrade process a number of years ago when George W Bush came to visit in order to handle his aircraft, but I didn't realise that the airport was capable of / rated for regular 747 landings outside of diplomatic flights and unplanned diversions.

That said, you're right about the lack of demand. CBR is pretty much ideally placed in terms of international connections - if you don't mind a ~60-minute connecting flight to either SYD or MEL then you've already got 4 daily flights to the US and 6 daily flights to LHR with QF alone. Add BNE as a connection option and the options expand further.

I can't see how a city of less than 400,000 people could support direct international flights given the ease of accessing those connections - especially if the quality of service (timings, aircraft and lounges) is inferior with the direct flight option than when connecting.

 

[Skyring]

There isn't the demand for any regular service anywhere to or from Canberra. I'd guess there might be a B737's worth of international travellers a day, but they would be spread out all over. US/UK/Europe/Asia/Pacific. Forget the longhaul flights to UK or US - we'd never fill a jumbo or A340 or anything similar.

Maybe to a hub like Singapore a couple of times a week. But what's the point? Fly to Singapore to swap to a plane going to your final destination, or fly to Sydney (or Melbourne) to do the same thing. Sydney has more flights, better times, better facilities.

We don't have that much CBR/WEL traffic to justify a direct flight. Just guessing, but you'd be looking at a couple of dozen souls each week, tops.

Maybe if there were regular international flights a market would build up. But honestly, I can't see it. Sydney is too convenient. It's a $15 bus fare to the international airport if you don't want to fly there. And adding the air leg isn't a big deal anyway. Last time I looked it was pretty much the same price to anywhere whether you flew from Sydney or from Canberra via Sydney.

As an overflow from SYD, maybe. But yeah, we'd need another big runway - the present cross runway is only used by light aircraft up to Dash 8s. And even then they don't fly in or out via the city. They come in or out from the east with a shortish approach. Jets would be pretty much landing or taking off fair over Queanbeyan. Then there's the fog problem...

 

[harvyk]

There isn't the demand for any regular service anywhere to or from Canberra. I'd guess there might be a B737's worth of international travellers a day, but they would be spread out all over. US/UK/Europe/Asia/Pacific. Forget the longhaul flights to UK or US - we'd never fill a jumbo or A340 or anything similar.

If they had regular international services from CBR, you'd probably find that CBR becomes the defacto international airport for most in the southern NSW region from Mittagong down to Eden and probably as far west as Wagga.
These are people who would not bother with travelling via CBR at this stage and would go directly to SYD (or MEL for some of the very southern people). With that sort of "catchment area" we'd probably fill a jumbo, maybe a bit more, but the problem is not all of them will want to go to the same place at the same time.

Of course the other way to look at it is "if we build it, they will come", maybe having CBR as an international airport will entice people to travel because it's easy.

 

[medhead]

I dare say CBR is an international airport for the same reason that jervis bay is part of the ACT. It's the nation's capital. Symbolic reason not practical.

 

[harvyk]

I dare say CBR is an international airport for the same reason that jervis bay is part of the ACT. It's the nation's capital. Symbolic reason not practical.

CBR uses the word "international" in it's name because Terry Snow want's to remind everyone that there are Customs and AQIS guys sitting out at the airport doing very little, and that they could be doing more.