Australian Airports Association, Chief Executive, Simon Westaway at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Australia Pacific 2026

Transcript

Simon Westaway:So this next wave of airport expansion over the next decade, we'll see over $40 billion in direct capital investment going into our airports. $36 billion of that $40 billion is coming directly from the private sector. So these are all of our major gateways as well as a number of our emerging Gateway airports, our largest capital city and largest regional airports from around the country. Overarchingly, there's a lot of other investment going on right through airfields, from our largest in the land through to the smallest. So it's a significant level of investment— new runways, new terminals, adapting terminals for the future modernised border, right through to obviously car parking and other expansions that are occurring. We have a series of regulatory concerns. We also have some optimism on the regulatory side. The reality is there are rising costs right across the ecosystem of aviation. They hit airports as much as they hit airlines, just cost of construction, cost of pavement, things of that nature, particularly coming out of the Middle Eastern frac-up. We saw, you know, asphalt prices rise up to 50%, so it's hitting everybody in its own ways. We obviously want to continue to see a commitment towards the light-touch economic regulatory model that we've had in this country for a long time now. We've had 4 Productivity Commission inquiries that have completely continued to reinforce the model we have, which is enabling airports to expand, but also importantly to encourage airlines to grow and to stimulate the market. You know, we've got 62 international airlines operating currently to 13 international airports right around our country, which I think is an amazing figure, and that'll be 14 when Western Sydney International comes online in October. When it comes to the border, the border modernisation is really critical, fundamental where we're going as a country. So we have 45 million passenger throughputs, if you like, internationally now, both Australians and incoming visitors. That's going to grow out to around 86 million per annum by 2040. Pull that back, we have a clunky border system at the moment where in essence we continue to have a, if you like, a yellow or an orange arrivals card. So the announcement that we recently made with the federal government and with their key agency, Border Force, was that the airports will be working very closely with the government as we move towards the modernised border. From an airport's perspective, that's about, I guess, repurposing our terminals to be able to meet that future seamless travel arrangement, where in essence people push straight through rather than— Yeah. Have a lot less friction in the system, if that makes sense, as we move towards passportless travel, seamless travel, which is occurring in many other parts of the world. It isn't occurring here now, we still have that yellow arrivals card. It'll go into a website platform initially before there is that ongoing transition into an app-based arrangement where you can do your ATD, the arrivals card, that process will be digitised and that'll enable you to move more quickly through the arrivals area as a flyer. Yeah, it's good all round. Look, this truly is a win-win on a range of fronts. It's a win-win because it'll be less friction for customers, it'll allow an So in essence, that Changi, Singapore Changi experience is something that we want to finally replicate here in Australia. It'll occur all around the country, so all of our existing 13, 14 international airports will ultimately have this in play. It's going to take around about 18 months and probably closer to 2 years for this to be fully bedded in. We understand over coming months, flyers will be able to do that digital, that arrival will be done in a digital sense through a website, and then ultimately, and similar to those trials which Qantas have been successfully operating, around 450,000 flyers have utilised digital arrivals card in the Qantas app, that'll be replicated, or there'll be a model of that replicated for other airlines as, as it starts to roll out.

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