Canberra Bids For Sydney's Second Airport

[Nigelinoz]

CANBERRA AIRPORT has launched a bid to become the Sydney's second international airport as part of an ambitious 20-year plan that would see it emerge a significant aviation hub.
The airport's preliminary draft master plan argues that establishing a very fast rail link between Canberra and Sydney would be a cheaper option than a greenfields facility outside the Sydney basin.

“We believe that the use of an existing major airport facility, such as Canberra Airport, will significantly mitigate the cost to the Commonwealth,” the airport's managing director, Stephen Byron, said.

“The cost of developing a new international airport facility outside the Sydney basin at a location between Canberra and Sydney, with a dedicated high speed rail link to Sydney, would be substantially greater than extending a high-speed rail line to Canberra and utilising existing airport facilities at Canberra Airport.”

Full Text: Canberra bids for Sydney's second international airport | The Australian

So Canberra could become South Sydney International ! It would need to be a bloomin fast train to make it worthwhile to even think about wouldn't it?

 

[oz_mark]

Re: Canbers Bids For Sydney's Second Airport

We will be complaining about unreliable, long in the tooth 787's long before Sydney gets a second airport.

 

[medhead]

It would need to be a bloomin fast train to make it worthwhile to even think about wouldn't it?

Note really, its only about 300 km. Most decent high speed trains can run at 300 km/h. So it wouldn't be greatly worse, depending of a few factors, than the other options mentioned, could even be better, assuming that landing at airport No 1 isn't an option.

Just gotta make sure that they have the courage to actually build a high speed train and not a low - medium speed train like they have ATM. 160 to 180 km/h - high speed? Freight trains in europe are that fast :!::shock:

 

[coco50]

What's the fog/weather factor like in CBR? Probably not good. I can also see curfews so that the good people of Canberra can get their sleep. 300km is a long way and it would take some time to build a VFT. Where would it terminate in SYD? For all these reasons I would think that NTL is a better bet for Sydney's second airport. With the infrastructure already developed at SYD it will be a long time before it is trashed or downgraded

 

[Nigelinoz]

Note really, its only about 300 km. Most decent high speed trains can run at 300 km/h. So it wouldn't be greatly worse, depending of a few factors, than the other options mentioned, could even be better, assuming that landing at airport No 1 isn't an option.

Just gotta make sure that they have the courage to actually build a high speed train and not a low - medium speed train like they have ATM. 160 to 180 km/h - high speed? Freight trains in europe are that fast :!::shock:

It would have to be a LOT faster than the current train,which,if my memory serves,takes about 4 hours CBR to SYD?

 

[JohnK]

In my opinion it is not feasible and offers absolutely nothing towards solving the issue of a second airport in Sydney. That is if we really need a second airport.

Assume the fast train will stop in the City possibly Central. How often is this train going to run Sydney-Canberra vv? Let's assume a 1 hour trip with a possible 1/2 hour to 1 hour wait at the train station. Then another hour or so to get home from Central. So it could take 3 hours, possibly more, to get home after clearing immigration and quarantine in Canberra and I don't live far from the city. Who wants to do that after a long haul flight?

 

[docjames]

Sydney doesnt need a second airport. It needs it's current airport to increase capacity - say, by, extening curfew and increasing movements per hour.


There's a novel thought

 

[Shano]

Sydney doesnt need a second airport. It needs it's current airport to increase capacity - say, by, extening curfew and increasing movements per hour.


There's a novel thought

Or a fourth runway

 

[coco50]

Sydney doesnt need a second airport. It needs it's current airport to increase capacity - say, by, extening curfew and increasing movements per hour.


There's a novel thought

You are dead right. It will have to come to this. All attempts to develop a second airport for SYD in the last 40 years have ended in failure - NIMBY

 

[NYCguy]

All attempts to develop a second airport for SYD in the last 40 years have ended in failure - NIMBY

Because politicians main interest is in getting re-elected, not making airport users and airlines happy. The people who use SYD the most live in the Eastern suburbs and on the North Shore, not in the areas that are right under the flight-paths during approach or departure. I daresay that the majority of folk who reside at Sydenham or Kurnell would love to see the airport move as far away as possible...

Then there's the outrageous situation that's brewing in outer London, where Greenpeace have purchased the land that was earmarked for LHR's new runway. Don't expect a resolution of that debacle any time soon, any more than you can expect to see Nathan Rees and Anthony Albanese turning the first sod for the new SYD facility, or even a fourth runway at Mascot.

 

[Paul_PER]

I wonder how many people fly from Canberra to Sydney just to connect to a flight somewhere else?

Perhaps landing slots could be freed up at Sydney if Canberra were to actually offer direct flights to places like New Zealand, Indonesia, and Singapore. The former could be served by 737 / A320 / E170 / E190 services. The later two destinations would be a problem range-wise. I think 763 / 787 / A350 would be all too large (for daily services). Perhaps someone would be brave enough to introduce the long range versions of the 737 / A320's to Australia (i.e. the business jet versions with aux fuel tanks) or find some 757 / 762's.

Yes - I know - just dreaming!

 

[oz_mark]

I wonder how many people fly from Canberra to Sydney just to connect to a flight somewhere else?

Dometically probably a few. Onto international services, I doubt sufficient to support many flights.

 

[Hvr]

I wonder how many people fly from Canberra to Sydney just to connect to a flight somewhere else?
<snip>
Yes - I know - just dreaming!

Exactly right there Paul, why waste a scarce resource, i.e. landing slots on people who don't want or need to use them.

Using Canberra as a transit point is sensible and currently it is underutilised, especially for 24 hour a day flights. There was a recent kerfuffle over a developer trying to expand under the flight path which would have stuffed up CBR like SYD is for late flights.


I guess the main reason why there will never be a second SYD AP is Macquarie. They wont give up a cent without a long and bitter fight. And every plane that doesn't land in SYD is many dollars not in their pocket. Wonder what their current contrat says about the issue of a second SYD AP?

I bet if it is allowed there will be billions of dollars compensation paid to Macquarie. Still we have to think of the greater good, a VFT would eliminate the SYD-CBR plane route and good riddance. How many slots would that free up in seconds?

Imagine people commuting to SYD everyday from CBR by train? It would be viable and lessen the impact of urban sprawl which has nearly reached CBR anyway. And an hour commute on the VFT is less than the trip from NTL or the Blue Mountains.

Finally it may just be the spur to finally devellop a viable public ransport system in the CBR/QBN region, the current PT mish mash of the most inapt acronym in existance, ACTION buses for CBR and Deanes in QBN could be redeployed to being feeder units for a real PT system.



PS can we get SCs on a train?

 

[dot]

PS can we get SCs on a train?

You can on the ICE in Germany!

 

[medhead]

It would have to be a LOT faster than the current train,which,if my memory serves,takes about 4 hours CBR to SYD?

As I tried to imply Australian trains are painfully slow by world standards.

Do note that I said depending on a few factors. There has been some attempts at time analysis. The current train from NTL would take just as long as a fast train from CBR. I'm not sure there would be capacity in the NTL train line to add a fast train service, with dedicated high speed rail etc. Out west is a long way from the CBD and anywhere useful. So as I said, depending of a few factors it couldn't be much worse that the alternatives for a second airport (well I didn't say that last bit )

JohnK - 1 hour to get home is not what I call close to the central, unless your walking

 

[medhead]

You can on the ICE in Germany!

Or perhaps not

Frequent Flyers do not earn points on Qantas codeshares with Deutsche Bahn.

from the fare conditions of a dummy booking. Not sure if that includes SC

 

[pauly7]

Yawn the old Canberra airport story... it comes up like clockwork every 6-8 months

Don't expect a resolution of that debacle any time soon, any more than you can expect to see Nathan Rees and Anthony Albanese turning the first sod for the new SYD facility, or even a fourth runway at Mascot.

The day Nathan Rees does anything remotely useful I'll drop dead with shock. NSW is a basketcase period.

 

[dot]

Or perhaps not

Frequent Flyers do not earn points on Qantas codeshares with Deutsche Bahn.

from the fare conditions of a dummy booking. Not sure if that includes SC

Fair enough - I figured if there was a code share on the ICE, you would earn points and SCs... probably a bit naive of me.

Back on the CBR topic though, I think the current media is in response to the new owner of Goulburn Airport's claimed plan to offer an alternative to SYD - particularly for cargo but also with facilities for pax. See Goulburn threat to airport plan - Local News - News - General - The Canberra Times

Plans to redevelop Goulburn Airport could ground Canberra Airport's 24-hour air freight aspirations.A strong NSW political push to curb Canberra's development is playing into the hands of property developer George Tzovaras, who paid $2.65million last month for Goulburn's airport.

Apparently, the owners of CBR are less than impressed with Mr Tzovaras plans...

 

[JohnK]

Or a fourth runway

No problem. Build a parallel runway to the coast out in the sea so take off and landing will most likely not affect residential areas.

There is nothing fun about being woken at 2:00am or 3:00am by a commercial aircraft overhead. It is has happened to me a number of times in Spring Hull, Brisbane with freighters. Just as well there are only so many freighters operating at that time of the night....

 

[JohnK]

JohnK - 1 hour to get home is not what I call close to the central, unless your walking

I live ~13kms from the city or 9 stops from Central as the train travels or ~23 minutes train time unless there is an express. I factored in time to connect from very fast train platform to suburban platforms and then possible wait time for suburban train, sometimes scheduled to run half hourly and then 10+ minute walk from station to home....