Business Case for the SunShine CoaSt airport Master Plan

Business Case for the Sunshine Coast Airport n Master Plan (November 2009)
07 Funding Options
Government involvement in funding the proposed SCA project is justified if the
monetised benefits flowing to non-airport participants in the economy are higher than
the net costs of the project.
The previous section illustrated that
the airport itself cannot generate
sufficient revenues to pay for the
capital and operating costs of
the facilities required to serve the
projected demand. However, not all
of the benefits or costs of the project
accrue to the airport as there are
currently significant externalities that
are borne by residents and the local
economy.
Where these benefits are sufficiently
large, the government (either local,
state and Commonwealth) is justified
in acting as an agent for residents
and the local economy in funding the
project so as to realise the benefits
that would then flow to residents and
the local (and regional and national)
economy.
This is because Governments can
act to aggregate the interests of the
local community and take actions that
would otherwise not occur if each
member of the local community were
acting only in their own interests.
07.1 Benefits to the
local community
The benefits to the local community
were analysed and costed through
the PwC report and are derived from
the sources described in the following
table. The key pools of benefits are
summarised by the classes of the
potential beneficiaries of those benefits.
Each pool is described by comparing a
project case with a base case.
■ ■ Benefits to airport users
■■
■■
––
Travel time savings experienced
by passengers
––
Diversion cost savings
experienced by airlines
––
Reduced transport times
experienced by freight users
Benefits to residents
––
Avoided noise impacts
––
Reduced safety risk impacts
Benefits to the regional economy
––
Increased regional expenditure
In addition to these pools,
environmental impacts arise from the
potential monetary impacts of prices
attached to carbon emissions.
Finally there are other flows and
impacts that, while incorporated
across the three broad pools of
beneficiaries (airport users, residents,
and the regional economy), are useful
to identify. These include employment
generation and flows to governments.
07.2 Economic benefits
of the Master Plan
project
Economic benefits have been
calculated for key categories of
benefits, and include a range of
economic, environmental and social
benefits. Benefits were calculated
on a net basis within each category
– that is, where a benefit category
includes both a cost and benefit item,
the net benefit or cost is reported. The
table below indicates the base net
benefits calculated for each category.
31