Western Sydney Airport must take Airbus A380s

The government-owned company building Sydney’s second airport must cater for the world’s largest passenger plane.

Experts mostly agree Western Sydney Airport must be able to handle the world’s largest aircraft including Airbus’s A380.

The government-owned company building Sydney’s proposed $5.3 billion second airport must cater for the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, new documents confirm, reigniting debate about the role of the airport and superjumbos.

Western Sydney Airport design standards and principles insist it be able to accommodate any aircraft type, including the A380.

The move comes amid division between Airbus and Boeing over the future for jumbos such as the behemoth Boeing 747s and A380s.

Minister for Urban Infrastructure Paul Fletcher noted that in the lead-up to the introduction of the A380, “airports around the world had to invest significant funds in becoming ‘A380-ready’.

“In starting with a new airport it is critical that the infrastructure is designed in a way that can handle any type of aircraft that might need to use Western Sydney Airport,” Mr Fletcher said.

“It would not be sensible nor cost effective to initially build to a smaller specification and then plan to retrofit the airport later — particularly for an airport that relies on a single runway.”

Industry veteran Peter Har­bison, the executive chairman of CAPA-Centre for Aviation, backed the approach.

“Given that this is an airport for the future, you would also certainly be building to runway specs that are above the existing standards, so that would be only sensible,” Mr Harbison said.

He said while the number of airlines using the A380 was limited, “the fact is that certainly Emirates, which is a major operator to Australia, will be operating them for at least another decade or so”.

“I certainly would be using that as the minimum benchmark.”

But Mr Harbison added that the proposed new airport at Badgerys Creek would need a fast-rail link to the airport that would deliver growth to it. “Is anybody talking about fast rail out to Badgerys? No,” he said. “And that’s absolutely what’s needed.”

But Webber Quantitative Consulting managing director Tony Webber, who was Qantas Group chief economist between 2004 and 2011, questioned the need for the airport to be fitted out for the superjumbo.

“I think the Western Sydney Airport demographic will be low-cost leisure,” Dr Webber said.

“And if it’s low-cost leisure they are predominantly going to service Bali, Phuket, Fiji, New Zealand and a few other bits and pieces, probably within seven or eight hours, nine hours from Australia.”

The A380 tended to be associated more with “full-service carriers that are less likely to fly into western Sydney”, he said.

However, Mr Fletcher said Badgerys Creek would have a role as an alternate airport in the Sydney basin to handle diversions.

“WSA will provide airlines that operate the A380 into Sydney (Middle East carriers along with Singapore Airlines and Qantas) confidence that they will not have to divert to Melbourne or Brisbane (or elsewhere) if delays mean they would be unable to land at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport,” Mr Fletcher said.

Significantly, he said not all taxiways would be capable of handling “code F” aircraft (the only “code F” aircraft in passenger service in Australia is the A380).

He said this was common on all airports, where some taxiways were restricted to “code C” aircraft (such as the smaller Boeing 737 and Airbus A320).

The government’s 2016 environmental impact statement for the airport forecast that only about 0.5 per cent of aircraft movements during stage one operations would be International Civil Aviation Organisation “code F” designs — the largest aircraft, generally the B747-8 and A380-800.

Stage one of the airport will begin operating in the mid-2020s. It will comprise a single runway and cater for 10 million passengers a year. By about 2050, it is expected that a second parallel runway will be needed.

Over the long term, the EIS forecasts that up to 1 per cent of the expected mix of fleet would be “code F”.

A 2012 study by Ernst & Young on potential airport sites argued that allowing airfield and terminal infrastructure that could manage A380 and B787 aircraft would mitigate airport pollution. As well as meeting minimum runway and taxiway widths, being able to ­accommodate a superjumbo requires minimum widths on the taxiway and separation between the runway and taxiway.

Last month, debate erupted about the future of superjumbos after a bearish assessment by Boeing of future demand.

Airbus sales chief John Leahy said that with traffic doubling every 15 years and airlines increasing capacity, there was “clearly a need for larger aircraft when infrastructure at congested airports cannot grow at the same pace”.

“The A380 is a favourite with the flying public and is rightfully the flagship of airlines that operate it,” Mr Leahy said.

Australia’s aviation safety watchdog has allowed aircraft to operate on runways that are narrower or have a lesser ICAO code than Code F, but only when certain conditions are met.

For instance, while the ICAO has recommended 60m-wide runways for the A380, CASA has accepted a runway width of 45m as the minimum for the A380.

This approach in line with similar moves by the US Federal Aviation Authority and European Aviation Safety Agency that also have a process for allowing A380s to land on “code E” airports ­designed for smaller widebody aircraft with little or no infrastructure changes.

Similarly, for the Boeing 747-8, several countries have had processes to accommodate it being used at airports that are less than code F.

Globally, about 140 airports are able to take the A380, although this rises to up to 400 airports when diversion airports are added, according to the Airbus website.