I think there is an implicit assumption on this thread that the super-terminal necessarily has to be built at the old Kingsford Smith airport which indeed has limited real estate and suffers from arguably poor planning. However, what I will point out is that the new Western Sydney Airport under construction won't suffer from these issues *knocks on wood*
There is no doubt enough room to theoretically do it but as Sydney Airport including T3 is owned by IFM/QSuper and Global Infrastructure Partners now how is Qantas going to convince the new owners to make such a big capital investment at one particular terminal to suit (admittedly) one of their largest customers?
If we are restricting it to QF and OneWorld partners, I could even see a situation where T2 and T3 merge to form the super-terminal with JetStar and everyone else moved to T1.
This would mean a wholesale relocation of Qantas's largest maintenance capacity and workforce to another airport as well, which wouldn't be cheap or easy. Anything like construction at an airport, and being built in Australia, would also end up being over budget and 10-15 years late. I think the time to do this was about 15-20 years ago if Qantas had managed to gain clear ownership and legal title over a big enough footprint to do it.
I think such pessimistic views are unwarranted. Sure projects do slip behind schedule, that's a commonality virtually anywhere. But 10-15 years late? I mean c'mon, this isn't Brandenburg!
Those Chairmans Lounge memberships for politicians and public servants (Dept of Transport and Infrastructure and ACCC) will come in handy because it would take some radical regulatory intervention to either properly re-privatize Australian Airports or possibly look at re-nationalizing them. Not to mention the fact that the PM's seat is adjacent to Mascot airport.
Really depends on what Uncle Alan has in mind here. If his vision is to make Sydney be an international hub much like London or Dubai or Atlanta, then it might be an easy sell. Having lived in a number of continents, I'm surprised at how poorly connected Australia is in terms of flights. I mean 2 non-stop routes to Europe? Really?
I imagine the positions would be:
Sydney Airport (IFM/QSuper GIP) - "remove the curfew, and then we will consider a taxpayer-funded capital spend at Sydney"
Local politicians/NIMBYs - "no change to the curfew - aircraft have not changed since 1965"
Curfew isn't the issue. The fact of the matter is Kingsford Smith doesn't have the capacity to run a lot of flights. This isn't like LAX or Heathrow that can pump flights out the wahzoo!
Qantas - "give us some (taxpayers) money and we will build an expanded OneWorld T3
At the end of the day, what will matter is what the alliance thinks of the arrangement. I can put to several examples of airports where entire terminals are dedicated to alliances (i.e. Terminal 1 at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, or the Queen's Terminal at Heathrow). The question is whether there are enough partners flying into Sydney each and every day to make the operation suitable.
ACCC - "We would like to reform the policy of airport ownership but don't have an economic model yet - come back to us in 5 years"
ACCC hasn't lifted in a finger in decades!
Local councils - "we will build as much stuff in the way to interfere with aviation operations and keep residents from complaining"
NSW State Government - "we will acquiesce to any threats from Qantas to move jobs and operations to another state"
Isn't that what the Chairperson's Club memberships are for?
Actually the smart thing to do is not to tie up capital in such a way but to leverage your position and get other entities to stump up the capital.
Remember QF sold off 14ha of land including its distribution hub around Sydney Airport last year in a stay alive Covid sale.
Remember also QF sold its lease of T3 back to SYD in 2015. This means that T3 is technically no longer an exclusive QFd terminal and SYD can let other airlines use it. Potentially this means both domestic and international. Though QF and SYD have a handshake agreement for QFd to remain outwardly "QF" until at least 2025 despite the lease saleback. QF now pays a per passenger fee to use T3 and does not get income from the sublet retailers.
Whether or not it makes sense for an airline to own a terminal is up for debate. Many airlines and alliances have dominated terminals around the world without owning them (i.e. Terminal 2 @ Heathrow or Terminal 7/8 for United @ LAX)
Sydney Airport have also said previously it wants to integrate its Terminal use.
Integration is gonna be real important because no one wants to deal with the nonsense of having to pick up luggage, take a bus, re-clear security, etc. In theory if you arrive off an international flight all you need to do is clear immigration and you should be dumped into the domestic terminal. They do this in Canada in Toronto and Vancouver (it's called One Stop Security, it's a part of an ICAO/IATA annex meaning any airport can do this if they want to make the experience smooth)
VA² gets moved to T1
QF uses an integrated T3+T2+expansion along with JQ and its OW/EK/MU
That's what I think too. Then again, Uncle Alan will probably dump us lot who choose to fly JQ to T1 just to spite us!
How is QR going to play this scenario
Probably gonna complain that the roof to the terminal is the wrong shade of purple and the paint is flaking off!
Plenty of land at MEL. No curfews either.
Yes and Melbourne is the larger city in Australia (or at least it is
projected to be by 2030)
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