YSWG - Wagga City Airport

2016-2017

A decision was also made to install an Airport Advisory Committee and the terms terms of reference were drafted 2016 and enacted 2017.

2024-04-18

The Regional Airport Users Group was formed in 2018 in direct response to Wagga City Council governance of the airport the charter of this group was inclusive of all regional airports, because there are perceived governance issues nation-wide and no nation-wide safeguarding framework to protect airports spanning from Authorised Landing areas, bush strips, farm strips, and airports all the way up to the larger regionals such as YSWG.

Due to the proposal to change airport fees and terms of use for aircraft a large number of Wagga City Aero Club (WCAC) members attended the public session at council chambers to support our submissions and speak to incentivisation changes in the Airport fees. At that meeting the councillors elected to provide the Private Aircraft Annual Landing Permit for all General Aviation and Recreational aircraft that wished to engage.

We believe that this decision was to support General Aviation and the WCAC. An effort to assuage declining General Aviation, which has been suffering at the smaller regional airports nation wide. Recognition that General Aviation is the grass-roots from which Maintenance Engineers and Pilots are made.

There were of the order of 7 members who were eligible to immediately take up the offer in the coming financial years.

This was adopted by some WCAC members and allowed Cootamundra, Temora and Albury airport users who participate in Wagga Aero Club activities the opportunity to attend functions at a fixed cost by pre-purchasing the Annual Landing Permit. The Aero Club felt that this was a good decision and we were lead to believe it would continue.

2022

In 2022 a WCAC committee member had their use of the Annual Landing Permit declined and had to contest that by letters to the Business Manager and had to privately inform AvData that the bill is in contest. The landing charges accumulated and over a month later they were waived when the aircraft was retrospectively permitted. This caused considerable inconvenience and ill will and sent messages far and wide across the General Aviation community.

2023-2024

We believed the case was resolved, until the 2023-2024 financial year when the terms were allegedly surreptitiously changed, and under circumstances where the Wagga City Aero Club and Airport Advisory Committee were not notified and could not be heard. A seemingly insignificant change in terms of revenue that has far reaching flow-on consequences to the General Aviation community and ill-will.

This coupled with lack of consultation of the Airport Advisory Committee calls into question the governance of the airport and effectiveness of council to maintain industry since industry have moved on or shuttered, or are about to shutter.

For aircraft operators on farms, and in the surrounding regions of Albury, Jindabyne, Adaminaby, Tumut, Cootamundra, Temora, Narrandera, Young, Cowra, Parkes, Orange, Wellington, and indeed Bankstown, our once regular visitors to the Wagga City Aero Club the messaging is that people have been dissuaded from visiting YSWG, dissuaded from attending WCAC activities, and other events.

YSWG was onced used as my re-fuelling stop instead of purchasing fuel at Canberra, and now instead I fly to Temora, which is much more attractive in terms of fuel cost and infrastructure amenity, and has zero landing fees, and is closer to Canberra. I increased my landings at YTEM from 2 per annum to 103 in the last 9 months as a direct result of the fee changes at YSWG. Thus YTEM airport now gets my custom and SkyFuel is my re-fuelling agent.

Having aircraft forced away from an airport due to fee structures and other tenancy issues sends a strong signal that effectively causes pressure on and the decline of Aviation in General at that airport. The follow-on consequences of reducing numbers of visiting GA aircraft affects maintenance, fuel supply and other community retail outlets. Aviation is tenuous and easily affected by seemingly small changes in cost factors which in the aggregate have a greater affect including the affect on the regional communities that provide a variety of services. Not to mention that owner operators take their custom elsewhere driven by costs and incentives or lack there-of.

Pilots will vote with their feet as I have voted, thus I am now an infrequent visitor to YSWG and instead I buy most of my fuel from YTEM.

2025-Apr-28

It is rather disappointing that the changes were made to the Annual Landing Permit after council voted to remove the proposed constraint in 2018. This coming financial year council have provided an indication that they will continue with the changed terms despite submissions from the Wagga City Aero Club and this time council propose increasing fees for our light-aircraft community (those aircraft below 5,700 kg and users of a 1.77 km piece of bitumen) by 8% which is way above CPI.

The council public session where people may speak on this matter was on 28-Apr-2025 at 18:00 in council chambers. (The results of RP-5 Airport Fees public session has been posted below.)

I also draw your attention to the back ground reading:

• https://www.change.org/p/alter-charges-and-abolish-landing-fees-for-light-aircraft-at-regional-airports
• https://www.facebook.com/ralph.holland.505/posts/pfbid02VAMLZWtvMnSviETkG67VED7LLgjquSGXmYgCWt7q5y3THw4HqFcMCFjE1Y6hSwf7l
• RP-5 https://meetings.wagga.nsw.gov.au/Open/2025/04/OC_28042025_AGN_5012_AT.PDF

I wonder if the council will take heed to our submissions? I guess they may instead remain on the category:GA unfriendly airports list, along with many more councils we can add to this list later.

2025-04-28 circa 18:35 update

Council accepted my talk against the introduction of fee changes and then moved a motion to defer any vote on the matter to the next council meeting until after they have had the opportunity to read the other submissions that were not tabled.

This provides two members of the public a second opportunity to speak to the RP-5 proposed fee changes at the next meeting's public session.

I argued that I have changed my flying pattern and now refuel almost exclusively at Temora due to financial drivers caused by changes to the YSWG airport fees. I do not have an insignificant fuel draw-down and both Temora and I win while Wagga loses. I then called on the council to reconsider the fees, rescind the resident aircraft term on the Annual Landing Permits and to incentivise visiting aircraft and to counter the decline of GA at their gateway.

The Wagga City Airport has lost flight training, and now a maintenance organisation, and I mentioned I have seen this happen at other airports.

The local area has such a large captive range of aircraft if only the council could incentivise and lower fees to attract more aircraft. With the influx of more pilots resulting in subsequent greater spend in the community.

I flew in recently just to meet up with relatives who were travelling through on a 4WD trip and we had dinner in a restaurant. Jim Morgan uses the airport as his road from his property into town to conduct business, and other pilots have been known to do similar, and that is spend money in the community.

Clinton McKenzie and the Cootamundra aviation community managed to have their council remove the fees imposed on the Southern Cross Gliding Club - who bring in between $50,000 to $100,000 each visit, depending on numbers.

Places like Temora also have a zero landing fee policy and that airport attracts gliding competitions that utterly and completely fill the town, and not to mention the same thing happens when the air shows were on. Temora Council progressively even setup a caravan park at the airport. Temora is a good model as council also said up an Aviation airpark and that is a rates-value proposition.

Airports and associated aviation events, and well placed incentives, can very easily result in an uplift to regional economies, and general aviation is essential for agriculture, fire fighting and aero medical transport, maintenance, training and are the suppliers for people who start out and keep the big end of town running - that is no less than Regular Public Transport. Once GA is eroded and the airports decline it is very hard to get the activity back - and then a greedy property developer subsumes the runways and aviation suffers and often times is gone.

The proposal was to increase fees by about 8% which is well above CPI, and back in 2024 they imposed a resident-only constraint on the Annual Landing Permit voiding opportunities for surrounding regional property and aircraft owners a much needed incentive, and despite voting to rescind that very restriction in 2018 to help the Aero Club and General Aviation - which is in decline nation wide.

If the fees increase at YSWG and the Annual Landing Permits are restricted to resident aircraft only, then I stated that I have elected to take my custom to Temora - purely based on cost drivers. I have decided to reduce my inbound flights to YSWG next financial year to once a month to attend Wagga City Aero Club lunches only and I will visit Temora even more since it is closer and cheaper for me to refuel than at YSWG.

I have heard some of our other aero club members do likewise and that is refuel at Temora. It is nothing personal, it is about getting the most air coverage for our dollar.

I also save money and fuel flying to Moruya (27 minutes flight time) than when I fly to Wagga Wagga (54 minutes flight time) - which way would you go with your grandkids if you were choosing?

I am trying to point out that Wagga City council is promoting aviation decline the way things are going, and to couple that with unknowns about lease tenure at the airport any investment will just stop.

A seemingly small change in a fee or an impost can have far reaching consequences for the community. Could you imagine what would happen if they charged people to launch their boats from the boat ramp, have you pay to drive down the Main Street, or to use the public toilets - all provided to the community free of charge? Yet the council charges for access to the mere 1.77km piece of tar called a runway. That little stretch of bitumen is the gateway to your city and it’s treated as a tollway and traffic avoids it.

Expecting a captive small user base of local aircraft to support an airport is unreasonable, instead consider what incentivisation means with the capture or more and wider custom and flow-on effects to the aviation community and the community at large. Do you want business people to fly to your regional airport and invest and spend money within your region? Do you support the grass roots of aviation from which every maintenance engineer and pilot originates - and that is General Aviation and aircraft below 5,700 kg - ones that do not even leave a dent in the hardstand?