By Kristy Gilligan 

Established in 1940, Bankstown Airport is located on the doorstep of Western Sydney, just 22km south-west of the metropolitan central business district, a stone’s throw from the freeway. The 313 hectare site boasts three runways, extensive taxiway and apron areas and a thriving business park, home to over 170 successful businesses.

What most don’t know about Bankstown is that there are very nearly no passenger operations to speak of. Being so close to Sydney Airport it makes some sense but it does make one wonder what the 371,000 movements last financial year comprised of.

Like most airports of its type in Australia, Bankstown Airport has followed the trend of utilising airport property for other commercial purposes. Bankstown was once the property of Federal Airports Corporation (FAC) and in those hands it was losing around $1.5 million a year. The always controversial allocation of land for other purposes has assisted in raising revenue outside of the aviation stream, keeping the airport afloat, but debatably limiting the aviation uses for the area. There is argument either way as to whether this is the best approach. Aviation still contributes the same percentage share of the airport’s revenue that it always has, only now the sum total is viable for operating and improving the airport, building on what was commenced back in 1929.

In 1929 the current site was first identified as an airport site by the (then) Department of Civil Aviation (DCA). The intention of the DCA was to develop the site as a second or training airport for Sydney.  No activity occurred at the site until 1940 when an area of 255 hectares was acquired to establish an RAAF airport. An important reason for locating the RAAF airport on the Bankstown site was its close proximity to the Clyde Engineering Works at Granville where aircraft manufacturing was being conducted. In 1942 a de Havilland (now Boeing) facility was established to produce Mosquito aircraft. During the war years the airport was first an RAAF station, then a US Army Air Corps base and then a Royal Naval Fleet Air Arm Station (HMS Nabberly).

In 1945, Bankstown Airport, as well as other sites, was investigated as the possible location for Sydney’s International Airport. The Bankstown site was considered unsuitable because of runway approach limitations but the airport was considered suitable to act as a reliever airport. As a result of the Commonwealth Government’s Cabinet approval to develop the Mascot site as the main international airport, control of the airport passed to the DCA in November 1948.

In the years to follow Bankstown airport would evolve slowly with an ever evolving list of improvements, starting in 1952 with a single gravel runway (11/29) of 914m followed over the years by additional runways, the installation of runway lighting; commissioning of the current control tower in 1970 and many other improvements.

In 1980 GAAP procedures came into force and the RAAF relinquished the last of the RAAF land to Bankstown Airport and in1988 the whole lot was handed over to FAC. By the time that Bankstown Airport transferred to the FAC in 1988, it had grown into Australia’s premier GA airport, accommodating more than 400,000 aircraft movements per annum. As the airport was still in government ownership however, it was still relatively immature from a stand-alone business/commercial perspective.

Under the FAC regime, Bankstown, Camden and Hoxton Park Airports were managed as a single business unit to achieve economies of scale in management. The FAC era represented the first real attempt to run Bankstown Airport (together with Camden and Hoxton Park) as a stand-alone business. During the FAC period, major activities and developments aimed at making Bankstown a viable business included the leasing of various land areas and some buildings for commercial activities, development of the first commercial office warehouse complex known as Nabberly House in 1991; and conversion of the pilot’s briefing office to a passenger terminal in 1993.

Although there is no regularly scheduled passenger service at Bankstown at present, the single storey passenger terminal building remains and is used on an occasional basis for passenger processing by charter operators. It is guessed that the terminal has a passenger processing capacity of 170 departing passenger and 150 arriving domestic passengers per hour.

Bankstown Airport is served by three parallel runways- 11L/29R, 11C/29C and 11R/29L.. Turbojet aircraft are restricted to Runway 11C/29C. In general, the direction of operations is equally divided between each runway end. There is a designated Helicopter Landing Site (HLS) located on a grass surfaced area in the north of the airport. The main HLS is located mid field and north of the runway complex.

Today’s Bankstown Airport is wound up in an extensive network of 65 separate taxiways, providing access to most everywhere, though some seem rarely used. Full length parallel taxiways are provided along the outside of the outer parallel runways. Loop taxiways are available around both ends of the parallel runway system allowing aircraft movements between the north and south sides of the airport without creating runway incursions. Taxiway access is available to aviation-related business surrounding the aircraft operations area with alternate taxi routes available to all facilities except those located at the most distant ends of the taxiway system. The extent of the taxiway system at Bankstown is the result of incremental development decisions over the years, combined with the widespread distribution of aviation-related uses around the airport. In some instances, taxiways duplicate one another and may cause a moment of confusion for pilots. The extent of the taxiway system reflects the dispersed nature of aviation facilities on Bankstown Airport and highlights a number of operational inefficiencies, if you would call 11.5 kilometres of taxiways inefficient.

There are approximately 100 separate aviation related businesses at the airport. These businesses are located in over 90 separate hangars and buildings at various locations on the field. A wide variety of flight training, aircraft sales and aviation maintenance, air charter and other aviation related services are available at Bankstown. Fuel service for both Avgas and Jet A1 is available from several firms providing a tanker service.

Service or Activity Number
The Air Traffic Control Tower is located on the west side of the airport on land leased by Airservices Australia. The tower is located along the main airport entrance road south-west of the approach end to Runway 11R. This location is less than optimal and past studies have considered relocating the tower to a more central location along the runway system. Fire fighting services are provided by off-airport state emergency services, which is not optimal for many larger operators.

Although aviation contributes a significant proportion of funds to maintain these facilities, there is an enormous amount of revenue required from other non-aviation related revenue streams to keep the kitty full. In fact, although Bankstown Airport is, as the name suggests, an airport in part, in financial terms it is more of a business park. The Bankstown preliminary draft masterplan states that the relative contributions of aviation and property activities has remained largely unchanged over the past few years, despite the attraction of additional non-aviation activities, such as mobile phone towers, office/warehouse complexes and retail facilities such as Bunnings, Aldi and Toll Holdings, to the site. Aviation revenues have also improved, through a combination of attracting larger, higher yielding aircraft, better management of utility networks, aviation price restructuring and attracting incremental income from activities such as television and movie filming. Nevertheless, the funding of maintenance and upgrade of aviation infrastructure is still dependent on the revenue generated from all activities.

Bankstown Airport’s traffic figures are all over the place thanks to pilot strikes and recessions but, over the long term, the latest  Preliminary Draft Masterplan states a compound annual average growth rate of 1.9 per cent over a 29 year period between 1969/70 and 1997/98. All signs of slowing down are absent with the period 2004/05 to 2008/09 showing a compound annual growth rate of 5.5%. with 367,170 movements recorded in 2007/08.

Over the 20 year period to 2029/30, traffic is forecast to grow to around 457,000 movements in 2029/30 from around 371,000 movements in 2008/09. While forecast traffic levels in 2029/30 represent a 23 per cent increase on 2008/09 levels, the 2029/30 forecast traffic levels
are around 6 per cent lower than the historical high of around 484,000 movements in 1989/90.

Bankstown management has aspirations of seeing increases to its nearly non-existent passenger aircraft traffic. In terms of aircraft type, by 2030 around 2.7 percent of aircraft movements are expected to be by typical regional (interstate and freight) aircraft, seeing movements by aircraft such as the Embraer E170, BAe 146, SAAB 340 or DHC-8; another 2.3 percent are forecast to be freight aircraft. This includes the proposed level of activity by many of the aircraft types that currently use Bankstown Airport for freight and other activity such as the SA-226 Metro, the Beech 1900 and the DHC-6.

So the other roughly 95 percent of aircraft movements will be by typical GA aircraft that currently use Bankstown Airport, including single engine piston and twin engine piston aircraft. These aircraft are typically used for flying training, charter and other business activities, including helicopter operations.

However, while Bankstown does what many other airports are doing by focusing on passenger transport and not general aviation, it seems this quiet little 95% of aviation activity at Bankstown is getting really active.

For instance, Bankstown is home to Australia’s largest flying school – Basair. They have over 50 aircraft online, the third largest fleet behind QANTAS and Vrigin Blue! And being big doesn’t mean they are only for professional pilot training: they also have school holiday flight camps, various workshops and fun activities. Bankstown is also home to the largest flying club in the Sydney region, Schofields Flying Club. They organised the first major Airshow in Sydney in 1976 and are a good fun flying school all the way through to serious professional training.

The great location lends itself nicely to scenic and adventure flights including the Sydney Harbour, with operators like Red Baron Adventures. These guys have a slick little operation founded on some really tidy little aircraft, a bright red Pitts S2A and Alpha 160A in the line up.

Bankstown Airport accommodates somewhere between 200 and 1,000 aircraft movements per day on the majority of days, with aircraft movements on a few peak days exceeding 1,000 movements. On average, around 250-260 aircraft are parked on aircraft aprons on the airport, with the majority of these actually based at Bankstown Airport.

The average daily number of aircraft based at the airport has remained relatively stable over the past three years. 68 per cent of aircraft identified at Bankstown are single-engine piston aircraft. These aircraft are typically engaged in flying training, private flying and related activities. Twin engine piston aircraft are the second largest category at 21.9 per cent.

A further 8.2 per cent of aircraft identified at Bankstown Airport are turbo-prop aircraft and these aircraft are typically involved in flying training, as well as charter, business/corporate and other aerial work activities. Rotary aircraft account for 1.4 per cent typically involved in charter or freight activity. The other category, at 0.4 per cent typically includes regional jet, military and overseas registered aircraft.

This is simply a taste of what Bankstown has to offer the aviation community. It would take five magazines to give them all due credit. Needless to say in the face of politics, economic rationalisation and a few mega stores, Bankstown is abuzz with aircraft and their operators.