Business Case for the SunShine CoaSt airport Master Plan

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1. Overview
The Sunshine Coast Airport is located within a region of over 300,000 residents and serves a
catchment of up to double that number. The Sunshine Coast Tourism Region attracted 2.7
million visitors in the year ending March 2009, with 90% being domestic visitors (2.4 million)
and 10% being international visitors (0.3 million).
SCA passenger numbers have grown from nearly 220,000 in 1993/94 to over 900,000 by
2008/09. This represents a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.9% for the 15-year
period. The period post 2000 has been turbulent with the Ansett collapse followed by the
introduction of low cost airlines which have promoted strong growth.
SCA management are preparing an update of its airport master plan and have requested
forecasting support from Tourism Futures International (TFI).
TFI has prepared a number of scenarios for traffic growth. These include:
• Current Runway Scenarios based on continued use of the current runway with its
limitations:
o Central version based on economic assumptions as outlined in this Report.
o High and Low versions based largely on variations in economic assumptions
and implications.
• New Runway Scenarios which allow for:
o Recovery of a proportion of flights lost due to weather/wind conditions and the
narrow runway. This amounts to 2.5% of passengers per year.
o Increased route options and no restrictions on Trans Tasman activity.
o The additional passengers resulting from this scenario are added to the baseline
forecasts.
Passenger movements increase from 912,000 in 2008/09 to between 2.1 and 2.8 million for
2029/30 given assumptions for the Central ‘Current Runway’ and ‘New Runway’ scenarios.