Page 1420 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
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One could say that we already have international flights coming into Canberra. There are 600 people a year arriving in Canberra directly from an overseas country. There are all sorts of reasons for that. The principle of this paired airport system could work well for Canberra. For instance, a Boeing 737 - they carry 110 passengers - could fly direct from New Zealand to Canberra, particularly now that the Commonwealth has designated the trans-Tasman route as a domestic route, and then fly to another major destination. It would not be Sydney, of course, as that is too close; but it could well be Melbourne, Brisbane or one of the other international airports.
There are 12 major airports in Australia, although not all of them are international. We could have twin-engine, wide-bodied aircraft being used initially in Canberra. Most of the international carriers currently flying to Australia have such aircraft in their fleets. Qantas operates Boeing 767 aircraft on both its international routes and its domestic routes. Very simply, Canberra can already have unrestricted flights for these 767 aircraft. At one time Britannia Airways flew charter passengers into Canberra. They had one flight arriving every 10 days; so, to that degree, we were an international airport. We are not necessarily talking about bringing loads of 350 people in per day or per week. The idea is to do it on a gradient. The development and infrastructure costs do not need to be high at the outset. As we pick up more international passengers we can increase the length of the runway, the width of the runway, the taxiing areas and the parking areas. As Trevor Kaine would know, it is important to have plenty of parking space.
Mr Kaine: Plenty of air space too.
MR STEVENSON: Particularly when the aircraft are a lot bigger than a Cessna or whatever it is that Mr Kaine is currently flying.
Mr Kaine: A Piper Warrior.
MR STEVENSON: It is a Piper, is it? One of the benefits to international passengers flying directly to Canberra is that it could well save them costs. If they off-load at one of the other international airports they are required to pay a domestic fare to Canberra, which is not cheap. If that trip was included on a direct flight their fare could well be lower. That would depend on the carrier and whether or not they were getting reduced rates for flying into major airports.
Let us look at some of the other international airports in Australia. We well know about Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and so on; but let us look at some of the others. Broome has an international airport, although, currently, there are no scheduled international flights coming in there. They have a population of some 8,000 people. Townsville, with 118,000 people, has one international carrier flying there regularly. They have, per year, 15,000 international passengers. When I talk about international passengers, they are the ones who come in. Of course, nearly all of them go out again.
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