Wellcamp

[rhysmcc]

Interesting reading about Airnorth, wonder where the plane will be based.

 

 

[Keith Page]

F_T ...That is good to see that your airport is starting to take off.

 

I think you are foxing us, just to keep us all away from the airport.

 

Best thing which has happened in Toowoomba for ages.

 

Regards,

 

KP.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Keithy old m8, youse not wrong, youse on the money. Think about this: the "$200M" that the Wagners spent on the airport didn't manage to build a decent hangar or any maintenance facilities like heavy hoists, spray booths, engine testing stands, etc. Hangars attract planes

 

But that "$200M" was probably loaned to Australian Wagners by Singapore Wagners at 5%, that's $10M pretty much tax free income. Well Singapore gets to tax that money not Australia, if its taxed at all.

 

and the you add on the 2.5% deprecation allowance on the buildings and runway, there's another $5M tax deduction for the the next 25 years.

 

When I first heard it was Air North, my first reaction was "Air who?" and then I immediately thought Avalon. Two underutilized airports looking for a carrier. Air North have 4 E170s so a cancellation due to technical issues going to have a major impact on their services

 

 

[mnewbery]

Airnorth’s infrastructure includes a purpose-built 3,500m² hangar at Darwin, all maintenance services, with all communications, IT systems and ground service.

 

Dispatch reliability covered here:

 

https://bitre.gov.au/statistics/aviation/otp_month.aspx

 

IF for the sake of easy maths Virgin got 80% dispatch that is 20 cancellations per 100 flights or comparing to Airnorth, 80-ish cancellations per year. It is what travel insurance is for.

 

This has nothing to do with only having four E170s or three and one in scheduled maintenance. Two would be flying and the other on non-scheduled charter.

 

Run your own airline then get back to us with details on how you went. Better yet send your details to BITRE and let them report on it.

 

The highest actual cancellation rate was something like 3% according to the link and it wasn't Virgin. It was the airline with the oldest and crappiest planes, naturally

 

 

[mnewbery]

And run your own airport, while I'm at it

 

 

[fly_tornado]

having to fly an empty plane from Melbourne to Darwin to get a fix can't be cheap. Seems like they are moving into a market where everyone will be thinking "air who?".

 

Its about the passengers at the end of the day, comparing dick sizes doesn't pay the bills, you should know that.

 

If air north aren't on this chart, can I really trust them? Easier to fly out of brisbane

 

 

 

[mnewbery]

Trust. Don't trust. Plane flies and either goes the way of Rex and Sharp or Brindabella and SkyTrans.

 

All had cancellations much the same as the worst one mentioned above.

 

Virgin Embraer spares are in Brisbane. They will happily sell and deliver them to anyone, almost anywhere. A part can be in Toowoomba in less than 3 hours. For Townsville and Avalon I'd expect even less time. A maintainer can accompany the part if required. You just need to ask. This is common for Australian operations

 

 

[mnewbery]

The planes have these things inside them too. I think they are called baggage holds. People pay to have freight like live lobsters and high value fruit, tractor or marine parts and even suitcases on consignment go in there.

 

In the dark.

 

Without a passenger who owns it on the plane or anything.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

So why is it, after a year, Wellcamp is only doing 2 flights a day to Sydney? I might not know a lot about running an airport but its not doing a lot better than the old airport.

 

I can't see things picking up once BNE gets its second runway and associated infrastructure online.

 

To give an example of how long a year is in aviation, look at qantas share price, up 60%

 

 

 

[mnewbery]

A post contained two unrelated statements. One showed a graph on the effect of cheap fuel on share price given no other variables changed much. The other was a question about internal business decisions around balancing considerations of load factors, nett revenue per seat mile and appetite for risk in an economy transitioning between primary industry construction and services or processing/value adding based activities.

 

The audience is now aware of who doesn't know anything about running an airline. Mis-interpretation is no longer a risk.

 

Also these issues have nothing to do with the third statement. These two statements have no direct effect on the cost per tonne landing fees charged by the airport. Again, more internal business decisions.

 

The landing fees are published already. There is no per-passenger cost published. It is POA.

 

The audience is now aware of who has a truly regrettable failure or inability to imagine Australia has another Lara Corry, John Wagner or Malcolm Sharp and no understanding of how they built on previous relationships to achieve mutually beneficial goals.

 

With such a failure of imagination, it's easy to understand why one cannot see when or how things are going to "pick up".

 

Other have imagined the future. It is not their job to share that vision with anyone other than their creditors and associates.

 

 

[Aldo]

The Wagners got really lucky yesterday, there was a big storm that came in yesterday and missed the airport by a few hundred metres and an hour after the 8F left. Imagine if it had hit when that 747 was landed.Everyone would have been "quickly put that plane in a hangar" and the Wagners would be "there are no hangars, apart from the one the we build for our beech air and it won't take a 747"

 

 

 

FT

 

How many spare hangers do you think are in Brisbane if the same storm hit there, you may not like Wagners (for whatever reason) but you need to compare apples with apples.

 

Aldo

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Aldo, mate, there are passengers in Brisbane, you can fly away and come back after a few hours and make money flying those stranded passengers, can't do that in Wellcamp because there aren't any passengers. *ka-ching*

 

 

[rhysmcc]

Air North also codeshare with Qantas, currently they operate Darwin-Gove-Cairns runs.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Mr Gregory said Airnorth had invited Qantas to expand its codeshare arrangements with them, meaning passengers can do things like book flights through either airline and get frequent flyer points. The invitation has not yet been accepted.

 

http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/melbourne-flights-to-lift-off-in-2016-airport-anno/2883214

 

 

[fly_tornado]

park for free

 

http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/wellcamp-airport-will-introduce-paid-parking/2885290/

 

 

[rhysmcc]

Cost me $15 for 45 mins at Brisbane International the other day... The first 4 hours free is a great way to attract people into the terminal rather then clogg up the roads waiting to pickup pax (such is the case at BNE)

 

 

[mnewbery]

Enough time for a leisurely coffee and cake while waiting for the flight to arrive.

 

 

[derekliston]

So much negativity on this page. I live in Warwick and 1hr 20mins to Wellcamp beats the hell out of 2hrs 30mins, about $10 in tolls and at least$15 in car park fees to pick up a passenger in Brisbane. I dropped off a niece to catch the morning flight to Sydney on Christmas Eve, free parking, good coffee, friendly staff including security (unusual at any other airport I've been to) and a full complement of passengers for the Q400. Beautifully done terminal building with an outside area to view take-off and landing. Well done Wagner I say! If I have a criticism at all it would be the (so I've heard) $60 landing charge if I take my CH701 in there. That makes for a very expensive cup of coffee!!

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Don't get too comfortable with using Wellcamp, its a long way from being a viable airport, which you would have noticed by the lack of people. Always just one heart attack away from closing.

 

 

[mnewbery]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_West_Wellcamp_Airport

 

These organisations respectfully disagree with the comment about a single heart attack in their organisations or Wagners:

 

Bechtel, Chyoda (Japan), JGC (Japan), CBI, Technip, QGC, Santos, Leighton, INPEX, JKC, MacMahons, John Holland, Incitec Pivot, WDRL, Ausenco, McConnell Dowell and Fluor.

 

Wagners has over 1000 staff. Some are very talented including those with prior experience from other airport operations.

 

How many staff does your company have? Remind us, we forgot.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

So at what traffic volume does it become a viable airport Matthew? What are all these people coming to Toowoomba to do? Visiting the Japanese gardens?

 

Why hasn't Virgin and Jetstar grabbed a piece of this lucrative market?

 

Tax evasion and minimization are big business

 

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/which-of-australias-biggest-companies-are-not-paying-tax-20151216-glpl3a.html

 

There's never been a more exciting time to avoid tax obligations with offshore shelters

 

20 years from now when Wellcamp is a race track you will look back on this and laugh.

 

 

[mnewbery]

The previous poster answered a question with a question

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Matthew, I appreciate that you are obviously highly experienced in these matters, why they no build any hangars?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Most MRO and FBOs aren't really into the property development game, it seems like you could attract a lot more smaller operators to Wellcamp if the basic infrastructure was in place. Forcing FBOs and MROs to buy and build would exclude a lot of potential new businesses to Wellcamp.

 

But what do I know right?

 

 

[mnewbery]

Without reference to previous posts. This quote appears in the Wikipedia article:

 

The airport is estimated to have a catchment area of 344,000 people. Since opening, to the month of September 2015, there have been 56,000 passengers using the airport. [3]

I'm guessing that's 56k pax total for about a year.

 

This is the first new airport in a while. Avalon was privatised in 1997. I don't know what the year on year growth for movements or passengers was for Avalon in its first 12 months of privatisation or if the recorded numbers are reliable. Given the comparisons between the Geelong-ish and Darling Downs catchment areas (for passengers and freight) ONLY it could be an academic exercise to use the performance of one airport to predict the performance of another ... Or not. For example the Department of Defence stills owns Avalon which is leased by Linfox. So they are quite different, actually. Like apples and oranges, even.

 

Also of note, RPT carriers are or should be QANTAS Link, AirNorth and Rex visiting Wellcamp in 2016.

 

The interested reader can look up which RPT uses Avalon.