An 11 month study into regional air services has been completed and calls on the state government to establish a special taskforce to promote country services.
The report from the NSW Legislative Council Standing Committee on State Development makes 21 recommendations to support regional air services, noting that regional services are vital to country communities.
“The benefits that regular passenger transport services provide to a regional community are significant and cannot be underestimated” the committee chair, Mr Rick Colless, MLC said in his comments.
“Regions that have lost their services described the detrimental effect on the local communities which included social isolation, reduction of medical and other essential community services, loss of industry and local business, population decline, and increased travel and time away from family and loved ones.
“Many of these effects contribute negatively to the wellbeing of a community and its ongoing health, welfare and general prosperity.
“The major recommendation to come from this inquiry relates to the governance of regional aviation and the creation of an industry and community based taskforce to progress the stabilisation, sustainability and viability of regional airlines required to service ports of less than 30,000 passengers per year.
“The provision of a return passenger air service to and from Sydney is the most important transport issue facing many communities across NSW” Mr Colless said.
“I urge the Government to consider the recommendations and to recognise the issues confronting industry and regional communities and to develop strategies that will assist these communities to remain connected with metropolitan NSW.”
Mr Colless said there had been a decline in country air services.
“Over the past two decades there has been considerable change across the aviation sector and the provision of regular passenger air services to regional centres has been adversely affected. Between 2005 and 2014, the number of airlines providing regular passenger transport services in regional NSW decreased by 54 per cent.
“As a result, there has been a 37% reduction in the number of regional centres that have a regular passenger transport service.
“Unfortunately, it is anticipated that regular passenger transport services will continue to be vulnerable as airlines work hard to remain viable.”
See the committee’s 21 recommendations in Thursday’s Courier.