Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) released (04-Jul-2018) a report, Connecting the Dots: Enhancing our National Aviation Network, recommending a series of reforms to improve the operating capacity and efficiency of Sydney Airport. According to the TTF, "inflexible restrictions" at Sydney Airport are "impeding the efficient operation" of the Australian domestic aviation network and having a significant impact on national productivity. TTF CEO Margy Osmond said Sydney Airport's operating restrictions are "rigid and outdated" and "must be immediately reviewed in order to allow the national aviation network to be more flexible and recover quickly when exceptional circumstances, such as significant weather events, lead to delays and disruptions". TTF called for a range of reforms:
- Replacing the separate hourly caps on slots and aircraft movements with a single cap on scheduled movements;
- Eliminating the 60 minute regulated hour, or 'rolling hour', which recommences every 15 minutes and is used to measure airline compliance with Sydney Airport's aircraft movement constraints;
- Allowing movement numbers to increase above 80 per hour without increasing the slot cap or overall number of movements in any given day. This would help relieve flight backlogs and enable airlines to restore national schedule integrity following instances of disruption;
- Consider removing specific regulations regarding regional air services, to provide airlines with the ability to use any slot held at Sydney Airport to operate either a regional or non-regional service, as is the case at all other airports across Australia. [more - original PR]