Flying Dirty over Sydney Backyards

Sydney Airport (KSA)

The Public Subsidy
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Flying Dirty over Sydney's Backyards - carcinogenic unburned fuel

What KSA Costs the Public - A Lousy Deal!!

Airport proponents are always ready to tell the public how valuable airports are. But what figures can you find that verify this ? When you look closely at the financial performance of the airports, a different picture emerges.

This report looks critically at the financial performance of Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport (KSA), and highlights the subsidy it receives by virtue of failing to reach commercial performance. See Sydney's Second Airport - Who Pay's & How Much   for a treatment of the proposed second airport economics.

SACL's Airline Subsidy

Direct evidence of the feather-bedding treatment of airlines was revealed in a report in the Daily Telegraph's (DT) Business section, on December 9, 1999, and confirmed by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's (ACCC) report on Sydney airport performance released on 23rd December, 1999.

The DT report indicates that Sydney Airports Corporation Limited's (SACL) return on investment is 2.6 per cent, compared to the 13.9 per cent return achieved by Qantas Airlines (1999, for 2000 Qantas reported 18.3% return on equity). Most rational investors would clearly prefer to put their spare dollars into Qantas. But is this because Qantas can freeload on the public purse to get new airports built ?

More compelling evidence of SACL's performance comes from SACL's 5th October 2000 press release announcing it's submission to the ACCC of a revised draft pricing proposal:

"Fair Return to Taxpayers

The Commonwealth Government, as shareholder on behalf of Australian taxpayers, reasonably expects to receive a fair return on around $1.7 billion worth of aeronautical assets. Current aeronautical returns are close to zero. This position is unsustainable if SACL is to continue to meet its objectives of providing world-class aviation facilities for its airline customers and the travelling public...

At present, all Australians are, in effect, funding the aeronautical facilities at Sydney Airport, while only the relatively few Australians who regularly travel by air receive direct benefits."

Obviously, while SACL's return is so miserable, the government won't get much out of its proposed airport sale. Nevertheless, there may be an opportunity for an airport investor to buy in cheap (discounting the sale price to produce a more appropriate return on investment), and then to quietly jack up charges to extract excess profits from her captive market. The cost benefit analysis in the Final EIS for Sydney's Second Airport reports a consumer's surplus (preparedness to pay extra) that suggests this is very feasible.

The eventual sale in June 2002 proved this speculation in June 200 to be right on the mark. The KSA sale was made at a bargain price, barely representing the unimproved property value.

SACL's proposed charges increase might be meant to head off some of this trouble. But it is only doubling the charges, perhaps producing a return on investment of 5.2 per cent - still well under half the return expected by airlines. And this increase applies only to the price-capped aeronautical services - which provided barely 7% of SACL's operating profit before tax and interest.

In spite of the massive subsidy being enjoyed by the airlines (around $440 million per annum, details follow) SACL is being extremely timid about introducing its partly competitive charges. Not unpredictably, the airlines have feigned outrage at this kid-glove treatment !

Lest you think this is a trifling subsidy, Australia's 6.5 million taxpayers are paying an average of $68 a year to subsidise this airport (and, you could probably triple this figure if you wanted to take account of what has been lost in the sale of Australia's other international airports).

Why Not User Pays

Airport management proudly boast that KSA contributes $8 billion to the economy. Whatever this means is highly questionable. But it is supposed to tell us we can't do without the airport.

If the airport is such a good earner, why not get rid of the subsidies and have the beneficiaries of its production pay directly and transparently for its keep ?

Much of Australia's competition reform process directs its energy at achieving transparency and allocative effeciency by getting rid of subsidies. Why haven't ACCC and regulators pursued this for airports ?

Closer Inspection

The aim of The Daily Telegraph article is correct but the details it cites don't quite line up with the information provided to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) by SACL and in Qantas' annual report. The DT may have mistakenly reported the description of the data.

SACL's Return on Equity (ROE) for 98/99 was approximately 2.5%, and Qantas' 1999 ROE was approximately 13.8% (for 2000 it was 18.3%). Many business investment analysts use ROE as a means of comparing performance - which is generally useful within similar industries (and where there are no significant difference in intangible assets not brought to book in profit/loss statements, as appears the case here). ROE also underlies the Weighted Average of Cost of Capital (WACC) criteria used by the ACCC in setting regulated prices.

Reproduced below in Table 1 is the SACL profit & loss statement (obtained via the report released 23/12/99 by ACCC, see www.accc.gov.au Sydney.zip ). You can find the Qantas annual report for 98/99 at the Qantas website www.qantas.com.au (was qal99arf.pdf ).

In the table below, column C is added to show how SACL would need to boost revenue to match the ROE performance of Qantas. Column B shows the change (increase) in each item.

Line

Table 1 - Profit & Loss Scenarios for Sydney Airports Corporation Limited

A

B

C

D

E

F

   
Description

Change

Matching Qantas ROE

SACL's 99/98 Audited financial statements    
Total Aero services Non-Aero services    
$m $m $m    
Revenue              
Aeronautical revenue

441

555

114

114

     
Non-Aeronautical revenue

0

181

181

 

181

   
Interest and dividend revenue  

3

3

       
               
Total Revenue

441

738

297

114

181

   
         

0

   
Expenditure        

0

   
Salaries and wages  

33

33

25

7

   
Depreciation  

57

57

36

21

   
Services and utilities  

22

22

10

12

   
Property Maintenance  

16

16

13

4

   
Australian Protective Service costs  

6

6

6

0

   
Other costs  

26

26

14

12

   
Total Expenditure

0

161

161

105

56

   
               
Operating Profit/(Loss)

441

578

137

9

125

   
               
Abnormal items       -      
Earnings Before borrowing costs and Tax

441

578

137

9

125

   
               
Borrowing Costs

0

44

44

       
Operating profit before tax

441

534

93

       
               
Tax charge

214

260

45

       
               
Operating profit after tax

227

275

48

   

0.514

OPAT/OPBT
               
Dividends paid

137

166

29

   

0.6051

DP/OPAT
               
Retained Earnings

89

108

19

       
               
Total Shareholder's Equity

89

1,990

1,901

       
Return on Equity

11.3%

13.8%

2.5%

   

OPAT/TSE

 

In the analysis in Columns B & C, it is assumed that the tax rate and earnings retention rate are the same as achieved by SACL in 98/99, and that expenses would remain constant.

The disparity in the Return on Equity makes SACL a fairly unattractive investment. For it to match Qantas' performance, it would have to raise an additional $441 million per annum in revenue.

At Jan 2000, SACL's sole shareholder (equity holder) was the Federal Minister for Finance. By allowing his company to run at less than the commercial standards Qantas can achieve, he is accepting a loss of this $441 million - made up of the the dividend (see Column B in Table 1), the tax charge he fails to collect, and the retained earnings not gained by SACL.

Ultimately, these losses are a subsidy funded by Australia's taxpayers. There are approximately 6.5 million taxpayers. Table 2 below shows the average subsidy per taxpayer is $68. On average, each taxpayer is forgoing $68 per annum to enable the hoi-polloi to jet-set away on overseas holidays, or to interstate business meetings.

Table 2 - Taxpayer Subsidy

  $m
Dividends Lost

137

Tax Charge Lost

214

Retained Earnings Lost

89

Total Losses

441

Number of Taxpayers (million)

6.5

Subsidy Per Taxpayer

$ 68

This subsidy is a benefit to the airlines, or their passengers. If they were paying their way, each passenger could be up for an average of $43 more per return air ticket. Such an increase would significantly impact demand on regional and short-haul domestic air fares.

In Sept 2003, Qantas complained bitterly about being unable to afford less than $12 per passenger to equip its aircraft with anti-missile defences. Airlines simply hate paying their way, and would much prefer that taxpayers shovel unlimited sums of money into their industry.

SACL would most likely try to soften the blow by striking a charge that shifted the weight more onto international travellers (as suggested in the DT report for the much more moderate increases SACL proposes).

Against this, the regional and domestic air routes consume runway landing slots as much as the larger international 747's. Deterring them could be just the right strategy needed to support more profitable international traffic without building a second airport (Neglecting noise impacts, as every good airport economist does).

Table 3 - Ticket Subsidy

AirLines Benefit

$m

Aeronautical Revenue Avoided

441

Passsenger Movements (million pa)

22.5

In Transit Passenger Proportion

8%

Passenger Enty/Exit at KSA (million)

20.7

$ per Passenger Entry/Exit at KSA

$21

$ per Return Air Ticket

$43

Perhaps it is high time the airlines had to build, own and operate their own airports - without dipping into the public purse for around $440 million at a time we are finding it desperately difficult to fund hospitals and universities adequately.

It might also be reasonable to question just how much more feasible the Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne fast rail proposals would be if they were to enjoy such a massive public subsidy.

It's clearly not a level playing field.

Will privatisation improve this ? Is it any better with the now privatised international airports ? Let's consider, for example, Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport.

Airport Sale Economics

"Melbourne Airport is owned and operated by Australia Pacific Airports (Melbourne) Pty Ltd (APAM), who took over its operation from the Federal Airports Corporation (FAC) in July 1997. APAM is a wholly owned subsidiary of Australia Pacific Airports Corporation (APAC). AMP, Deutsche Asset Management, BAA plc and Hastings Funds Management are shareholders of APAC. APAC paid $1.3 billion for a 50-year lease of the airport, with an option for a further 49-year lease at the end of this period - now owned by Airports Pacific Australia Melbourne) Pty Ltd." (source, ACCC).

Private Airports Lose Money

The ACCC's presentation of APAM's financial reports cautions that APAM's directors have decided that

"The company is not a reporting entity because in the opinion of the Directors there are unlikely to exist users of the accounts who are unable to command the preparation of reports tailored so as to satisfy specifically all of their information needs. Accordingly, this "special purpose financial report" has been prepared to satisfy the Directors' reporting requirements under the Corporations Law."

If that doesn't get you wondering what they've got to hide, the contents of their statements should. It turns out that APAM have apparently made a loss of around $29m in both the years of operations since they bought in. The directors are quick to reassure that it is a going concern:

"Notwithstanding the company's deficiency in working capital the Directors believe that the entity is a going concern based on future positive operating cash flows and finance facilities available."

Unfortunately, we can't see or assess these longer range cash flows. But there is something we can see...

Paying Too Much Interest

What we can see is that there may be some interesting accounting behind APAM's apparent loss. On borrowings of around $1292 m, APAM paid some $105 m in interest - equivalent to an interest rate of 8.1%.

In comparison, SACL's borrowings of $899 m required only $53 m in interest - equivalent to 4.9%. Qantas' 98/99 borrowings were achieved at an average interest rate of 5.3%.

As another point of reference, the privatised Brisbane Airport operator Brisbane Airport Corporation Limited (BACL) paid $90.1 million in interest or amortisation on borrowings of 1,196m - a rate of 7.5%.

ACCC has made no comment on the extraordinary difference in interest rates between SACL and Qantas on one hand, and the private airport operators on the other hand.

It could be that young companies like APAM are not able to get the lower interest rates the likes of government backed SACL and Qantas can get. But you could also wonder who is getting the benefit of this higher interest rate, and whether it's not just a way of either

  • getting money away from the tax system, or
  • obfuscating the financial dealings so that the public can't see what is going on.

Whatever the reason, APAM's negative Return on Equity performance makes it look like a huge underachiever compared to Qantas and SACL. But is it really that bad ?

SACL's Profitable Interest Rate

If APAM had borrowed at similar rates to SACL, it would have saved $42m - enough to get in the black, and paying taxes back to the Commonwealth. Assuming it paid 35% tax, it might have earned a profit after tax and abnormals of around $8.5 m. If this were retained within the company, it's shareholder's equity would have been $79 million, and the Return on Equity would reach a reasonable 10.7%.

(In fact, APAM could offset it's profit by it's $29 m loss from the previous year, and achieve an even better ROE. But, equally, in its previous year, it could have done better in the interest stakes. Including tax here probably gives a better picture of APAM's underlying profitability).

It's understandable that APAM might want to appear to lose money. It will certainly help defend a low sale price for Sydney airport. And it will also help SACL's case for increasing airport charges.

Why Hide Profit ?

APAM could be expected to support SACL's increased charges. Even though the ACCC price-caps restrict what it can expect to apply in Melbourne, it can only help to support someone who wants charges to move in a more profitable direction.

If APAM could scale its charges for 98/99 by the amount now proposed by SACL ($114 m to 212 m), it would have achieved a profit after tax of $10.2 m, to give Return on Equity of 12.7%, as well as making very good money for the companies it has borrowed from.

APAM's loss also makes it look like it's a good idea to sell the airports. As long as you

  • don't think about how much the value of the assets might have been discounted in the sale process, and
  • can't see what Returns can be expected a few years down the track as passenger numbers increase and APAM's debt burden falls, and
  • don't consider SACL's superior Return on Equity.

SACL's results might also suffer from under-valuing of the assets (certainly the replacement cost of KSA, namely the projected cost for the Second Airport are at least double the book value of KSA).

But at least the obfuscation of private ownership, highly geared financing and high interest rates aren't there to distract you from seeing that Sydney airport is in fact a heavily subsidised financial underachiever.

Is Selling Airports Profitable ?

Provided that the airport price is not discounted to allow for the poor returns expected from the current taxpayer subsidised operating regime, selling the airports may well be a good idea. Especially if the returns from user-pays commercial drivers were to remain in this country, rather than dissappear overseas as excess interest and other transfer payments.

On the other hand, selling the airport at too low a price will lock-in the public subsidy permanently in a way that will escape most people's attention. It's a clever trick if you can get away with it.

Airport's Real Estate Business

What is an airport operator's Real Business - where does it makes it's money ? It's revealing to look at each airport's Operating Profit before Tax and Interest, divided by the number of passengers moved (to account for size differences between airports).

As table 4 shows, for Sydney only 7% of the profit comes from aeronautical services. Much more profit is coming from the public car park.

For SACL, the car parking contributed $24 m to operating profit ( or $1.10 per passenger movement). The total operating profit for aeronautical services was only $8.5 m.

Table 4 - Operating Profit Before Tax and Interest, per Passenger Movement
  Aero/pm NonAero/pm % Aero Car Parking
Sydney $ 0.39 $ 5.56 7%

$1.10

Melbourne $ 0.90 $ 4.41

17.0%

$1.13

Brisbane $ 0.28 $ 6.34

4.2%

$0.79

For Melbourne, car parking earned $1.13 per passenger movement, and in Brisbane $0.79.

And there are clearly much greater profits available from the non-aeronautical activities (we've not considered here how much money is being made by the contractor's operating the airport parking concessions).

This is further evidence that airport users are simply not paying for the real cost of providing the aeronautical services.

If you look to what is bringing in the money, the airport operator is really in an up-market retail and car-parking business.

Given how little profit arises from the aeronautical services at an airport, the economy may well be better off converting airports to other commercial uses.

Airline Charges to Rise

The Daily Telegraph report by Ian Lovett, December 9, 1999 read:

Airline fares are set to rise as Sydney Airports Corporation beefs up its balance sheet ahead of an expected float next year.

A Sydney to London ticket is likely to rise by $10.25 and Sydney to Melbourne by $1.95.

The rises, if approved by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, will take effect from November 2000.

The ticket rises follows the Federal Government owned Sydney Airports Corporation - SACL's - decision to double its airport fees.

SACL said this would boost its revenue by $98 million to $212.5 million.

The money would be used to bring the airport operator's return on investment closer to current returns.

At present, SACL's return on investment is 2.6 per cent. By contrast, Qantas returned 13.9 per cent on investment in 1998-99.

Brokers said it was normal for government enterprises to cut costs and boost income to make their balance sheets more attractive ahead of floating on the stock exchange.

Three weeks ago, the Federal Minister for Finance and Administration, John Fahey, said he favoured a float of SACL, but it is not yet Government policy.

Mr Fahey also said he favoured offering SACL shares at discount prices to residents affected by airport noise.

SACL's manager of economics, Steve Fitzgerald, and chief financial officer, Don Huse, met with the airlines to discuss the rise.

Mr Huse stressed the rise would not be introduced until after the Olympics to allow the airlines to better plan for its introduction.

SACL chief executive Tony Stuart said the proposed increased charges to airlines followed a significant upgrade of facilities for passengers and airlines at the airport.

It predicts a 6 per cent rise in international and a 7.5 per cent increase in domestic passengers over the next year.

Despite SACL's attempts to soften resistance, industry analyst said the fee rise was expected to get a hot reception, particularly from Qantas.

Qantas' share price has fallen 26 per cent since November 22 after Richard Branson's Virgin Airlines said it planned to begin operations in Australia, threatening Qantas' hold on the lucrative domestic travel market.

SACL's Price Proposal Keeps Subsidies

A 24 page document detailing SACL's proposal for increased charges (9th Dec 1999) can be found at the ACCC airport report website ( http://www.accc.gov.au/airport/airrep.html, follow the link to syd_proposal_summary.zip ) . SACL's Price Rise is based on an WACC of 8% on just the regulated aeronautical services they provide. It is effectively the Return on Equity deployed on the regulated aeronautical services (at least in SACL's opinion).

It does not address any underperformance in the non-regulated business, either on the aeronautical or non-aeronautical sides.

SACL's Price Rise will produce barely a quarter of the revenue increase that would be needed to bring SACL to a similar overall performance level to Qantas. This might be because SACL is underachieving in both the non-regulated and regulated parts of its business. So it might be that SACL should increase its non-regulated charges to ease some of the pain to travellers - but from the taxpayer's point of view it doesn't matter which part of the business the money comes from as long as it's not the taxpayer.

We will have to wait for future profit/loss statements and balance sheets to see whether improvement occurs in these areas. But the timidity with which the regulated charges increase is being proposed doesn't suggest the airlines will be losing their subsidy too soon.

Airport's Contribution to Economy

SACL claims the airport "contributes nearly $8 billion to the economy" and 66,000 jobs (8% of Sydney's workforce). But what evidence can they offer to support these claims ? Is it independently verifiable ?

The total revenue earned by Qantas on its world-wide operations was $8.4 billion, $6.4 billion of which was net passenger revenue for 19.2 million passengers carried - an average revenue of $336 per passenger carried (98/99 annual report). Net freight revenue was only $550 m, so it's only a small part of the picture

Given Qantas's share of the market, it's unlikely that all the airlines operating from just one international airport would take $8 billion in revenue from KSA - particularly considering it's not their home base. If a passenger carried means a one-way trip, then the total passengers moved by Qantas (from every airport it operates at) is just slightly less than KSA's total passenger movement of 22 million.

At best, SACL's claim might be talking about the revenue taken by all the airlines operating out of KSA. This is the airports's gross output, not its contribution to the economy's productivity (the difference is the gross inputs consumed, or expenditure made by airlines in producing this revenue; typically, production is about 10% of gross output in the aviation business).

It is specifically not the profit, from which tax might flow that could offset the subsidy. Qantas' $8.4 billion of revenue produced only $241 million in tax - probably not all of which was paid in Australia. It's hardly likely that the other airlines with even greater foreign ownership would pay even this rate of tax to Australia. Hence, it's likely that SACL's contribution produces much less than half the tax needed to offset the public's subsidy.

But the real problem here is that this is guesswork. Even for the experts that SACL might hire to conjure up such figures it is guesswork. The job count figure is even more guesswork - with other estimators claiming that to claim even 30,000 jobs for the airport would be overstating the case greatly. Our economy would be decimated if the other 92% of Sydney's workforce contributed as little as the airport. All of Sydney would contribute only $10 billion to the economy's whose annual GDP was $450 b as at Sep 99 quarter. !

The total Transport and Storage industries contributed only $25 billion to GDP, and it's contribution to employment was 4.7% (see www.abs.gov.au, Output and Employment by Industry). These statistics make the SACL's claims for its contribution look very doubtful.

Especially if you take account of some other complications:

  • It's not just the airport contributing to this revenue. There is a whole lot of public infrastructure supporting the airport - tollways, public roads, even basic services like electricity, water and sewerage.

    Imagine how long an airport or any other business could operate without electricity, yet no airline would expect that the costs of electricity production be subsidised because it contributes so much more revenue to the economy

  • There are competing forms of transport, such as high-speed rail, or ordinary road, rail and shipping services, that would substitute for the airport services. There are also competing forms of communications, like video-telephony and the internet that can substitute for interstate business meetings.

Given the vaguaries and outright trickery of many accounting practices, it's just not feasible nor reliable to go through every airlines' books to determine what the real contribution of KSA is. It is not transparent, and can never be so.

A major point of competition reform is that providing subsidies to particular businesses' is not an efficient way to run an economy. It's just too easy for a canny operator to missappropriate the subsidy or for his workers to grow fat and lazy on its benefits. It's too hard to be sure of what kind of return you are getting for the public money.

The market philosophy insists that these issues can only be addressed by taking a user-pays competitive market based approach to provision of services.

This market philosophy is being applied ruthlessly in Australia in most public services - witness the recent annihilation of the Commonwealth Employment Service !.

So why do we subsidise airports ? Why have they escaped the zeal of the economic reformists ?

Have the economic rationalists been corrupted by too many frequent flyer points ?

Aeronautical services

What are aeronautical services ? There is in fact a strict legal definition behind the accounts prepared by airports. This is given in the Airports Regulations.

To understand the term, you need to be aware of the distinction between "aeronautical services" and "aeronautical related services". The distinction here is that the Airport Regulations define aeronautical services fairly narrowly - almost to what could be seen as the monopoly aeronautical services - see Table 5 below. These aeronautical services are subject to a price-cap administered by the ACCC.

Aeronautical related services appear to be those aeronautical services that need to be monitored just in case the airport operator has "too-much" market power. ACCC is required to monitor these related services (see Table 7 below for description).

There are services (like the new train to KSA) that escape both price-capping and monitoring, as may any new investments by the privatised airport operators.

As well, charges introduced for demand management purposes will be exempt from the price cap. There's a great escape clause !

There are also things that Airservices Australia does (like air-traffic control, navigation aids, aircraft noise monitoring) that aren't included in the airport operator's responsibilities. And environmental services are also not even monitored (so guess where a canny airport operator could try to save a few bucks ?).

The financial statements supplied by Airport Operators are called for by the Airports Act of 1996, and more specifically defined in the Airports Regulations promulgated under those acts).

Table 5 - Aeronautical Services for Financial Statements

From the Airports Regulations (as at August, 1998), "aeronautical services" means services and facilities in relation to:

(a) aircraft landings, take-offs and parking, including the provision of:
  (i) runways, taxiways, parking aprons and associated lighting; and
  (ii) airside roads and grounds, and associated lighting; and
  (iii) maintenance and repair services in relation to runways, taxiways, and parking aprons; and
  (iv) rescue, fire-fighting and safety services; and
  (v) environmental-hazard-control services; and
  (vi) services and facilities to ensure compliance with environmental laws; and
  (vii) airfield navigation services, including nose-in guidance and visual navigation aids; and
(b) the embarkation or disembarkation and temporary accommodation of passengers, including the provision to passengers of:
  (i) toilets, seating, thoroughfares, transfer systems and aerobridges; and
  (ii) departure lounges and holding lounges; and
  (iii) flight-information and public-address systems; and
  (iv) facilities to permit the operation of terminal security services; and
(c) the administrative processing of passengers, including the provision to passengers of:
  (i) facilities to enable the operation of customs, immigration and quarantine services; and
  (ii) passenger check-in facilities; and
  (iii) landside terminal access roads, lighting and covered walkways; and
  (iv) baggage handling services; and
  (v) facilities to enable the operation of baggage security services;

"non-aeronautical services" means services provided at an airport that are not aeronautical services.

"Airside" means the part of the airport grounds, and the part of the airport buildings, to which the non-travelling public does not have free access.

"Landside" means the part of the airport grounds, and the part of the airport buildings, to which the non-travelling public has free access.

There is some disparity between the list of Aeronautical Services from the Airports Regulations, and the ACCC lists of price-capped or monitored aeronautical services. For example, the regulations do not include aircraft refuelling or aircraft maintenance sites and buildings as aeronautical services - things which you might ordinarily expect to consider to be aeronautical services (after all, the plane can't fly without them !).

Perhaps the regulations are trying only to identify the "monopoly" aeronautical services provided by the airport operators.

Table 6 - Price Capped Aeronautical Services
Aircraft movement areas
(a) grounds, runways, taxiways, aprons
(b) airfield lighting, airside roads/lighting
(c) airside safety
(d) nose-in guidance
(e) aircraft parking areas
(f) visual navigation aids
Passenger processing areas
(a) forward airline support area services
(b) aerobridges, airside buses
(c) departure lounges and holding lounges (excluding commercially-important-persons lounges)
(d) immigration and custom service areas
(e) public address systems, closed circuit surveillance systems, security systems
(f) baggage make-up/handling/reclaim
(g) public areas in terminals, public amenities, lifts/escalators/moving walkways
(h) flight information display systems
(i) landside road and lighting, covered walkways
Source: Department of Transport and Regional Development, ‘Pricing Policy Paper’, December 1996
Table 7- Monitored Airport Services

The services and facilities that are subject to formal monitoring are:

1 aircraft refuelling;
2 aircraft maintenance sites and buildings;
3 freight equipment storage sites;
4 freight facility sites and buildings;
5 ground support equipment sites;
6 check-in counters and related facilities; and
7 car parks (including public and staff parking but not valet parking).

Disclaimer

This web-page has been prepared on a non-commercial basis for the intended use of Sydney's airport-affected residents, and is specifically not suited for use for commercial purposes. It is based on the best available information at December, 1999, but it is recommended that you check the source documents and agenceis cited before making any further use of the material.


First published 2nd January 2000. Last revised

Last Change: vdeck mod

Visitor since Sat 21-Feb-2004.