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Chapter 6Air services in regionalcommunities6.1 IntroductionThe adequacy of air services to small and rural regional airports has always been ofparticular interest to policy makers. In Chapter 2, it was shown that the decline in thenumber of regional airports was largely attributed to the decline in the number ofrural airports. Most of these rural airports are in very remote Australia. The limitedlevel of air services provided to these communities is often associated with their smallpopulation base. In addition, factors such as level of economic activity, proximity tolarger airports and/or the availability of other modes of transport may also limit airlineentry at airports serving small and rural communities. The association between thesefactors and the level of air services a community receives is tied to a complex setof interconnected social and economic factors. The pattern of socio-demographicprofiles of communities with or without close access to air services is often shapedby a dynamic process. That process has been driven by a combination of major orgradual social, economic, demographic, technological and political transformationsover the years. These economic and social changes across Australia have impacteddifferentially on localities (Baum, S. et al. 1999).This chapter explores the fundamental associations between the distribution ofpopulation in urban centres and localities (UC/Ls) by airport size (based on airportclassification) 9 and some key socio-demographic factors 10 . The analyses in thefollowing sections are based on the spatial analysis assumptions outlined in Chapter 4.The population and UC/Ls numbers were estimated using the assumed distance of40 km radius from small and rural airports and 120 km radius from large and mediumairports. It was also assumed that if a UC/L is located within the access distance oftwo or more airports of different sizes, the UC/L is categorised as a location withaccess to the largest airport within the assumed access distance.As discussed in section 1.6, regional airports are categorised into sizes (i.e. large,medium, small and rural) according to annual passenger movements. In 2005, therewere 20 large regional airports, 31 medium regional airports, 38 small airports and82 rural airports serving in regional areas (Figure 6.1). It is worth noting that, whilethe small and rural regional airports are large in numbers, passenger movementsfrom these airports constituted only 5.65 per cent of the total number of passengermovement at all regional airports in 2005. Using the data from 2005, the followinganalyses examine how various key factors were associated with the distribution ofpopulation and UC/Ls by airport size.9. Airport classification is assigned to each regional airport based on passenger movement data from 2005.10. The socio-demographic data was based on a customised table requested from the ABS census data 2001. Fourvariables by UC/Ls were provided. They are population, mean individual weekly income, mean individual weeklymanufacturing income and labour force status (employment).163