Airport cashes in on us
SO NOW WE ARE FORCED TO PAY FOR THE AIRPORT UPGRADE, CAN WE MENTION A CONCEPT CALLED ‘ PASSENGER COMFORT’?
Did you see the news? We’re getting a new gateway to Townsville, because apparently, detention and rehab centres aren’t considered a good first look for visitors flying into our region.
Not that there are likely to be too many of those endangered species – passengers, that is, since the recent axing of Tiger’s Crispy Crème Express to and from Melbourne; but hey, anyone lucky enough to be flying anywhere would probably prefer the Tinder approach to tourism and feast their eyes on something slightly more attractive than what’s currently on offer.
That’s not to say I didn’t love the clever parking methods of those waiting for arriving passengers without paying for a ticket – the idling line- up from outside that house with the doneup pushbikes and timber children’s furniture.
Driving past on the way home always used to prompt the thought: “Aah, it’s still hot, it hasn’t rained, the pushies are still happening, pretty sure the bus hub won’t be, yay, I’m home.’
But thanks to a government grant this is all about to change, so what will this gateway actually entail?
You would be forgiven for thinking that Townsville’s new entrance would be an ethereal St Peter- style creation, as the announcement bore all the hallmarks of cushiony cloud cover, also known in some circles as a smokescreen.
Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the good gateway news was reported in the Townsville Bulletin the day before the bad news.
That news is the pesky $ 3 fee that Qantas wouldn’t stump up for is going to be now be called an Infrastructure Development Contribution. It means $ 6 added to a return ticket price.
Mind you, calling it a “contribution” is a bit rich as it implies it’s offered freely. So despite regularly trumpeting increased passenger movements as the reason for needing an airport upgrade, Townsville Airport boss Kevin Gill reckons we don’t have enough passengers for them to dip into their own coffers. Meanwhile Cairns is funding its own redevelopment from their operating budget.
So now we are forced to pay for the airport upgrade, can we mention a concept called “passenger comfort”?
Have you caught an Uber from the airport lately? Located out in Siberia- like exile as though it’s a distasteful afterthought, I came in on one of the last Crispy Crème Express flights late at night and surprise, it was raining.
Out I went to the Uber area marked by the two overflowing rubbish dumpsters and waited for my driver to arrive.
There is no shelter, so a group of passengers stood in the rain with increasingly sodden clothes and luggage … what a welcome to Townsville.
Until there is shelter from the sun and rain and, god forbid, some seats, why can’t Uber drivers pull in for their booked pickups like passenger cars do?
The lavish set up at Cairns airport offers both Uber and taxi pickups right out the front and there’s even a central sheltered area for smokers without the need for the lines punters are corralled into at our airport’s second Siberia.
Here’s to a great new gateway, but the ticket tax?
A reminder passengers are nothing but live export cash cows.