Sydney Metro Airport Bankstown has given its recent Fly Free Weekends initiative the thumbs up, judging the program to be a success after it tracked a 4.3 per cent increase in movements over previous quarter weekend data.
“The recent trends in the General Aviation activity have been depressed with traffic falling 20 per cent in 2010 compared to the previous year. As airport businesses across the board have experienced a decline in activity, we decided to trial some initiatives to boost traffic and stimulate the flow-on effect to aviation businesses across the airport,” airport Colin Grove said.
Grove said the initiative was open to all aircraft “under 2500kg flying in and out of Bankstown on weekends between November 2010 and January 2011”, with “considerable revenue … foregone during the promotion”.“During this period, we generated 1650 invoices with nil charges and we were pleased that 20 per cent of aircraft that flew were not normally hangared at Bankstown Airport,” Grove noted.
While Grove said he was “confident aviation suppliers, including fuel and maintenance operators, benefited from the promotion”, Sydney Metro Airport Bankstown would be “commercially unable to continue this initiative”, instead hoping more pilots would be enticed to return to Bankstown in the near future.
