The Zeppelin Times 4CRB Travel Show · The most recent express proposal is the AirTrain by the highly respected Rail Futures Institute (RFI). It’s part of a bold plan to separate

This is now Australia’s best major airport

It isn’t Sydney, but Kingsford Smith did bring home nearly $100m in parking profits.

Airlines might complain of diminishing margins in profit. But its airport counterparts can’t have the same gripe – at least in Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released its annual Airport Monitoring Report, and the analysis makes for good reading if you’re in the airport business, but perhaps not for customers, especially those that need to pay for parking. The report shows Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney airports “all significantly increased their profits” from aeronautical activities in 2016-17, with the four hubs earning a combined $757.6 million in operating profits (EBITA) – or a rise of 9.9% in real terms year-on-year. “It is not surprising that the airports are so profitable, given that they face little competitive pressure and no price regulation,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said. “Profits per passenger have also risen at

each of the four airports and travellers are paying for this through higher ticket prices. “Unconstrained monopolies often have an incentive and ability to charge excessive prices while lacking strong incentives to improve services.” According to Sims, the four major airports are handling 30 million passengers a year more than they did a decade ago, but the hubs “appear to be dealing with the challenge of congestion, and three of the four airports are in the process of either constructing or planning a new runway”. Whilst Sydney Airport makes the most money, earning $360 million in profit last year, it isn’t considered the best facility in the report. That honour goes to Perth Airport, which overtook Brisbane Airport with the highest overall quality rating of the four hubs. “It is clear that Perth Airport’s investment program over the past few years has significantly improved the quality of the airport in the eyes of both airlines and passengers,” Sims said.

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Parking, particularly at SYD, which earned $97 million from car parking operations with an operating profit margin of 71.9% of revenues, remains a huge source of income for the country’s largest hubs – and a huge area of contention for visitors. Mr Sims suggests booking online or seeking out nearby independent car park operators to save money.

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Rrevealed: the greenest city in the world for travellersIT’S NOT ALWAYS EASY BEING AN ECO-CONSCIOUS TRAVELLER. Especially when the appeal of travelling the exciting cities of the world can outway finding time to appreciate natural wonders and green spaces.

Luckily, the online travel specialists over at TravelBird have released the Green Cities Index for 2018, which highlights the best urban destinations for environmentally-minded travellers.

With sustainability and green living becoming increasingly prominent in contemporary life, TravelBird said they’re sharing this study in order to further the dialogue around sustainable tourism.

The results recognise the cities making large efforts to be sustainable by preserving ecological areas, as well as those introducing initiatives to improve the quality and quantity of man-made green spaces.

The data is presented in terms of square metre per person.

For example, the results show how many square metres of park or woodland each city has for every inhabitant.

This creates an easy visualisation of how much green space a visitor could benefit from during a trip.

“The World Health Organisation has reported that urban green spaces help individuals to feel more relaxed, reduce stress levels and also help protect against harmful pollutants,” said Fiona Vanderbroeck, Chief Traveller Officer at TravelBird.

“With many of our travellers seeking refuge from the grind of their daily routine, the thought of a city break might have once seemed contradictory to the idea of a relaxing vacation—but this index, highlighting the various green cities around the world, proves otherwise.”

And good news for Aussies, Sydney did pretty

bloody well, coming in fifth in the ranking of top ten greenest cities based on square



meters per person.

Here’s a break down of Sydney’s results:

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Here’s the top ten in terms of percentage of green space in the location:

These are the top cities for travellers looking for a destination offering more in the way of forests and woodlands:

And here are the top cities based on parks, again Sydney bloody killing it.



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And here are the top cities based on parks, again Sydney bloody killing it.



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Melbourne Airport is going to be as busy as Heathrow, so why the argument about one train line?Public discussion of rail links to airports has been narrowly focused on the idea of a single line and where to run it. In Melbourne, the politics of this debate has so far prevented a railway from being built, because it is not possible for one line to meet all of the landside access needs of the airport. The issue of rail access for a new western Sydney airport has also not been resolved.

If we want anything to happen at all, we must move beyond barracking for one or other route. We have to recognise the need for multiple lines to serve everyone’s needs.

If we look further afield, of the world’s top 20 airports, 16 have rail access, 14 have integrated metros (i.e. part of the commuter rail network) and four have dedicated express lines as well as integrated metro lines (London Heathrow, Tokyo Haneda, Shanghai Pudong and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi.)

Other busy airports like Heathrow offer a much better choice of transport options than Melbourne does. HeathrowIn terms of passenger demand, Shanghai Pudong and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi were comparable in 2012 with where Melbourne will be in 2019. London and Bangkok have populations of around 8 million, have other airports and have much greater numbers of passengers transferring within them than Melbourne Airport, but the most salient comparison is the means of landslide access.

We’ll look more closely at Heathrow, one of the more comparable airports to Melbourne, later in this article.

The political divide on a rail linkThe history of planning for a Melbourne Airport rail link has been dogged by party-political differences focused on the idea of a single railway and the question of its route out to Tullamarine. Traditionally, the Coalition parties have favoured the

express proposals, while the Labor Party has preferred alignments that benefit local commuters.

This difference and the impossibility of resolving it with a single line would be one of the reasons we have so far not gone to the bother of actually building anything. It has also distracted attention from more incremental ways to improve landside access to the airport beyond the SkyBus. Its market is similar to the main targets of the express route proponents.

The most recent express proposal is the AirTrain by the highly respected Rail Futures Institute (RFI). It’s part of a bold plan to separate Victorian regional services from the metropolitan commuter network. This would eventually provide statewide fast rail services, including a 15-minute ride between the airport and Southern Cross Station in the city centre.

The benefits of and urgent need for RFI’s AirTrain proposal are clear. But it still won’t solve all of Melbourne Airport’s landside access demands, nor will it have the city-shaping potential in the northwest region between Tullamarine and the CBD that’s driving the ideas for an airport metro service.

Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull’s embrace of these ideas is a welcome change from his side of politics, as is Premier Daniel Andrews’ apparent support for RFI’s proposal. These are amusing reversals of political positions on airport access, but the community should not be swayed by the potential for wedging.

We can learn from HeathrowTo understand our predicament of airport access, comparisons with London’s Heathrow are useful. Many Australians know this airport and its landside access demands are far more similar to those of Melbourne Airport than may be imagined.

The Piccadilly Tube line was extended to



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Heathrow in 1977. That was a decade before it was serving over 30 million passengers comparable to what Melbourne airport was serving in 2013.

In 1998, Heathrow added a 15-minute express rail line to Paddington Station, when its landside access needs were about 40 million. That’s the demand Melbourne Airport is projected to hit in 2019. When London’s Elizabeth line (formerly CrossRail) opens next year, it will connect Heathrow to a major east-west line similar to the Melbourne Metro.

In 2028, Melbourne Airport is projected to hit the same level of landside access demand as Heathrow experienced in 2017. Currently, 40% of passengers using Heathrow do so via public transport – 27% via rail, 13% via bus or coach. And 35% of airport staff use public transport, and this is rising.

Heathrow has 13 public bus lines, 27 coach services and three railway services – the stopping-all-stations commuter service on the Piccadilly line and two levels of express service at premium ticket prices on regional railways (which will be subsumed by CrossRail).

By comparison, even though it is one of the world’s busiest, Melbourne Airport has a mere four public buses, some regional coaches and private express bus services. As a result, 86% of access is by car, including 17% by taxi or limo. SkyBus would take the lion’s share of the 14% bus/coach access.

What do these comparisons tell us?These comparisons show how much more can be done to improve public transport access to Melbourne Airport, in the short, medium and long term. Melbourne Airport needs express as well as commuter rail access, but it needs more than this.

A wider spread of frequent public buses would be easy to implement. Extending the 59 tram service by 7km from Airport West would also be relatively quick and easy. Light rail lines to the airport from La Trobe University and Deer Park would provide much-needed connections to the main commuter rail system in parts of the metropolitan area where public transport is far worse than average.

A genuine commuter metro to the airport would not try to be an express. It would have stations that connect the major and emerging employment centres, such as Airport West,

Essendon Fields, Niddrie, Highpoint, Footscray Hospital and Victoria University, and heavy rail stations at Arden and North Melbourne, before connecting with Southern Cross and then Bourke Street, Parliament Station and on to those eastern suburbs where metro services have long been planned.

Such a line would help with the redevelopment of Commonwealth land in Maribyrnong. In fact, without it, redevelopment would not be viable.

The politics of airport access need to be shifted away from focusing on whether one rail route is better than another to the need for a comprehensive transport plan integrated with land use that shows how we can shape our city and our state for a better future.

Written by Ian Woodcock, Lecturer, School of Global, Urban & Social Studies, RMIT University.

Disclosure statement: Ian Woodcock has conducted independent academic research funded by the Australian Research Council, the Victorian State Government and various local governments and private sector organisations. He has consulted for the City of Melbourne, and is affiliated with various non-profit organisations advocating for better planning and transport.

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The Zeppelin Times 4CRB Travel Show · The most recent express proposal is the AirTrain by the highly respected Rail Futures Institute (RFI). It’s part of a bold plan to separate