Op-ed: Western Sydney Airport: What lessons can we learn from Dallas Fort Worth
As we plan Western Sydney Airport, due to open in 2026, there is much we can learn from Dallas Fort Worth Airport in Texas.
The Turnbull government, working with the Berejiklian government in NSW, is determined to maximise the economic impact of the new airport.
We want to attract as many businesses, and generate as many jobs in western Sydney as we possibly can. That is why I recently visited Dallas Fort Worth airport, to meet its chief executive and to learn about the remarkable success of an airport that opened in 1974 and today serves more than 60 million passengers a year, making it the fourth busiest in the US.
It was a bold decision by the civic leaders of Dallas and Fort Worth in the1960s to work together to establish a new airport midway between their two cities.
Dallas was already served by another airport, Love Field, which was considerably closer to town. Love Field continued to operate. Today it is the headquarters of the discount airline Southwest, and serves about 15 million passengers a year.
But Dallas Fort Worth Airport has stimulated strong growth in the region it serves. A recent report found the airport generates $37 billion a year in total expenditures and 228,000 jobs, mostly in the north central Texas area.
In the 1960s, the metropolitan area around the new airport had a population of about two million. Today it stands at seven million, and it is one of the fastest growing areas in the US. Western Sydney Airport will initially operate on a much smaller scale, at about three to five million passengers a year, but over the longer term it is expected to grow much larger, as Kingsford Smith Airport is expected to run out of expansion capacity by the mid-2030s.
A clear lesson from Dallas Fort Worth is the importance of longterm planning. It was built on a large piece of land which allowed it to grow for the future.
Similarly, Western Sydney Airport is being planned with substantial expansion capacity. The terminal will initially have capacity for 10 million passengers a year and there will be one runway; but there is a long-term plan for a second runway, and substantial capacity for the terminal to be expanded.
Another important lesson is the capacity of airports to attract business activity and to generate employment. For example, Toyota recently decided to move its US headquarters from California to a location near Dallas Fort Worth airport, and the airport was a major factor in the decision.
Amazon has three fulfilment centres near the airport and is building a fourth. These are massive facilities where goods from around the world are received, assembled into packages to be delivered to end customers, and then sent to customers in the multistate area served from the Dallas Fort Worth location.
The big German medical equipment company Fresenius has its major US facility near the airport.
As well as delivering equipment all around the US, it also flies in doctors to its facility for professional education sessions. Two large companies, one a global specialist in aeroplane parts, another in helicopter parts, are located in different business parks near Dallas Fort Worth airport.
International Commerce Park, one of the largest business parks near the airport, includes the global headquarters of three companies and the US headquarters of a fourth. A third lesson is that to capture these investment attraction opportunities, there needs to be land near the airport where businesses can locate, and land use planning is very important.
When Dallas Fort Worth airport opened, it was in an area that was largely undeveloped agricultural land. That is true of much of the area around Western Sydney Airport as well. The commonwealth and NSW governments are working together on land use planning issues.
The NSW government's Greater Sydney Commission is playing a key role in this. A fourth lesson is the importance of airfreight in an airport's operations. Western Sydney Airport is conveniently located to many existing logistics facilities, and there is land available around the airport site, so it will be well placed to capture airfreight opportunities.
The civic leaders of Dallas and Fort Worth took a far-sighted decision in the 1960s, and the outcome has been very impressive. It is a powerful reminder that if we make the right decisions concerning Western Sydney Airport, it has the potential to drive economic growth and job opportunities for western Sydney for many decades to come.
Published in The Australian 28/07/2017
