Airport flying higher

AVALON is such a great airport it is little wonder that people are using it in record numbers.

For locals Avalon means avoiding that monster commute to Tullamarine to fly out of Victoria. And for visiting tourists it’s a great gateway to the joys of our region.

From parking or drop off to check-in it is more of a userfriendly breeze than perhaps any other airport in the nation or even the world.

Sometimes you can check in and be enjoying a beer or a burger while you read a free copy of the Addy within sight of where your plane will take off from in under five minutes.

Some of these ease-of-use qualities will no doubt be lost over time as our region continues to grow and Avalon changes due to its success.

The great hope, stoked by Jetstar chief Dean Salter yesterday, of an international route from our doorstep to somewhere like Bali or New Zealand remains in prospect.

With these changes will come immigration and quarantine departments and a goodbye to the simplicity of the little airport that could. But even so they’re necessary growing pains.

Today’s report is a celebration of the results our airport has achieved under the reign of chief Justin Giddings — probably one of the most widely liked figures in Geelong.

The commitment of its tenant Jetstar to continue operating here should now be ironclad.

That has not always been the case. The airline has wavered, or appeared to waver, in its commitment to this region, managing to extract funding from government before agreeing to stay.

These figures seem to show Avalon can be made a going concern regardless of the tenant.

But Avalon’s future is not just in the sky.

It is surrounded by vast land tracks that have not yet been hit by urban sprawl.

It is close to existing rail lines, a highway and our port.

All this means that as a transport and a logistics hub it has huge potential.

If its current momentum is maintained the sky is the limit.