Airport a 'disgrace': Corrigan
July 22, 2002 -
www.new.com.au
PATIRCK Corp chief executive Chris Corrigan today said delays in giving Virgin Blue Airlines access to the former Ansett terminal slots in Sydney was a disgrace.
Virgin Blue, in which Patrick acquired a 50 per cent stake for $260 million in March, is seeking access to about eight of the 30 abandoned Ansett terminal slots from Sydney Airport Corporation (SAC).
Mr Corrigan today blamed lengthy bureaucratic procedures for the delays, and said he would prefer to deal with a government department.
"It's not fair to the passengers that they have to queue up in lines like this to get to the airport, to get through to their flights," Mr Corrigan told journalists at Sydney airport, pointing to queues spilling out of Virgin's temporary terminal and onto the footpath outside.
"It's really a disgrace that Sydney airport have got an empty terminal down the way with nobody in it, absolutely nothing in it - it's been like that for nine months or so, 10 months, they've owned it for two months - and what we're being told is that they're considering their options," Mr Corrigan said.
"I don't know what options they've got, but clearly Virgin has an agreement to go in there, we've settled all the major terms and we're being told, 'We're considering our options and we may be able to get you there in September or November'.
"In the meantime, the travelling public are the losers because they're having to queue up in this obscene fashion that we're seeing here today."
Mr Corrigan said Virgin Blue's discussions with SAC were intensely bureaucratic. He said the airport's new 40 per cent owner Macquarie Bank Ltd, whose Southern Cross consortium acquired the airport last month for $5.6 billion, took no responsibility for the delay.
"I complained to someone at Macquarie Bank about it and they said 'We're three levels above this' - three levels above it for God's sake," Mr Corrigan said.
"Somebody ought to get out here and find out what's going on.
"I don't even know how the passengers know what queue they're in - are they in the check-in queue, are they in the security queue, God knows."
Mr Corrigan said Virgin was not seeking access to the entire Ansett terminal, which would prevent a third domestic carrier from using the unused space.
"We're not asking for the whole terminal, we're asking for just enough gates to operate efficiently and safely," he said.
"We're negotiated over Pier A of that terminal, or even part of Pier A, but we're being given the bureaucratic runaround."
He said Virgin Blue was told an extra security gate at its current terminal facility would take another three months to install.
"That should take three days - the whole (Virgin Blue) terminal was built in two months," he said.
Mr Corrigan said the delays, which had never been explained to Virgin Blue, centred on establishing increasing airport fees for travellers.
"I imagine they're trying to see how much more they can gouge out of the travelling public by charging them some massive amount of money for access to that terminal," he said.
Meanwhile, the delays were costing Virgin Blue customers. Mr Corrigan said Virgin Blue's request was reasonable considering the airline was seeking access to a small portion of the Ansett terminal.
"We've got a fleet of 20 aircraft now, going to 30 by the end of the year, we've got about a 20 per cent market share, and we need about seven or eight gates," Mr Corrigan said.
"I think in that terminal over there, that Ansett empty terminal, there's probably 30 gates.
"We're not asking for much, we're asking for a bit of it on reasonable terms, which have already been negotiated ...
"We've been trying to negotiate the last final details for moving into the terminal and all we get about is board meetings.
"What kind of nonsense is this?" Virgin has secured access to disused Ansett terminal gates at most other key east coast Australian airports, including Melbourne, Brisbane and Townsville. Patrick Corp shares were down 12 cents at $15.30 by 1123 AEST.
AAP
Isn't it 
Try and get the silent majority to side with the underdog, irespective of the realities. That's how big business works 
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