Strategic Planning for Airport Capacity: an Appreciation of Australia's Process for Sydney

1 Australia has devoted considerable effort, since 1984 or so, to planning for future airport capacity for Sydney, the major center for air transport for the nation (Compared to efforts elsewhere in the world, its progress has been remarkable and deserves to be acknowledged. From an international perspective, Australia has been making an important contribution to the advancement of planning practice. It has been demonstrating by example the advantages of strategic planning as compared to traditional master planning. Strategic planning recognises that there is massive uncertainty in long-term forecasts, and consequently replaces the conventional more rigid master plan with a flexible approach. To appreciate what Australia has accomplished in adopting strategic planning for airports, the recent achievements around Sydney need to contrasted with the less impressive record elsewhere in the world. This record is all the more remarkable because it was established on the heels of previous attempts to deal with the issues of airport capacity that were ineffective at best (Department of Aviation, 1977). These two points will be made first, by way of background, before proceeding with a discussion of how strategic planning applies to airport planning, to Sydney in particular. Recent Achievements Airport planning is one of the more difficult issues for planners for several reasons: 1. Major national airports, such as Sydney's, are large, expensive facilities with major implications for the regional economy; 2. Metropolitan areas offer only a limited number of sites-Sydney in particular is ringed by substantial mountains; and, perhaps most significantly, 3. There is always massive uncertainty in aviation about both the precise nature of long term requirements and the levels of traffic. Deciding what to do about airport capacity, where to do it and when to do is thus inherently extremely problematic. It is also generally equally controversial. This has certainly been true for Sydney.