Bankstown Airport has announced the results of its 'Fly Free Weekends' experiment.
As we reported here, in an effort to entice more recreational flyers to the airport, in October 2010 Sydney Metro Airports, who operate Bankstown, announced that on weekends from November 1 2010 to January 31 2011 that it would waive all aeronautical charges for fixed-wing aircraft below 2500kgs MTOW.
Today Sydney Metro Airports CEO Colin Grove labelled the initiative a success, with an increase in movements of 4.3 per cent from the 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,” Grove said. “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.
“We are keen to promote the airport and its facilities, as well as support the General Aviation industry and decided to initiate a promotion that was bold and would attract attention. We are confident aviation suppliers, including fuel and maintenance operators, benefitted from the promotion.”
While obviously the dropping of landing fees at any given airport will lead to an increase in traffic, it’s worth noting that 1650 invoices were waived during those three months and 20 per cent of the aircraft that dropped into Bankstown weren’t normally hangared there.
“We received many compliments from flyers, along with requests to continue the program,” Grove said. “While we are commercially unable to continue this initiative, we believe we were able to showcase the excellent facilities and flying conditions at Bankstown Airport and we hope all pilots are enticed to return.”
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