Sydney Airport boss pushes for borders to open in step with vaccine rollout

The boss of Australia’s busiest airport says there will be no justification for state border closures once the country’s most vulnerable people have received a COVID-19 vaccination, and wants some international travel to resume when half the population has been immunised.

Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert said he had received a promising response from the federal and NSW governments on his plan to open up travel in step with each phase of Australia’s vaccine rollout.

“We will be perceived as the best place in the world to study, the best place in the world to work, the best place in the world to holiday,” he said on Wednesday after revealing a $145 million full-year loss at the ASX-listed airport.

Qantas’ near-empty terminal at Sydney Airport on February 14.
Qantas’ near-empty terminal at Sydney Airport on February 14. Credit:Edwina Pickles

“There’s a huge economic opportunity in this for the nation if we open up at the right speed.”

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Sydney Airport has proposed an end to state border closures once the first 7 million Australians in line for the vaccine have received their jab (phases 1a and 1b), which includes those aged over 70, aged care residents and younger adults with underlying medical conditions.

“Once our most vulnerable have been vaccinated, there’s just no justification for keeping state borders closed,” Mr Culbert said.

Australians will be reluctant to book interstate travel while the threat of snap border closures remains, delaying the industry’s recovery, he said. Sydney Airport’s passenger traffic was down 94 per cent in January compared to the same month a year earlier.

Under the airport’s proposal, international students, skilled workers and Australians stranded overseas would be allowed into the country once “phase 2a” of the vaccine program is complete, covering half the population including all adults over 50.

Australia would then start opening its border with low-risk countries for quarantine-free travel, and allow all inbound and outbound travel after the vaccine program is completed in October. The federal government has not provided a timeline for each phase of the vaccine program other than it will be finished in October.

Mr Culbert said he expected all travellers would have to prove they had been vaccinated, with several “vaccine passport” systems already being tested.

Having quarantine-free, international travel resume before the end of the year is an optimistic outlook, with Australia’s chief health officer Paul Kelly warning last month that international travel reopening would be “one of the last things” to change.

But Mr Culbert said the outlook was improving after positive signs of how vaccination programs in other countries were progressing.

“The mood has now changed, as a nation we’ve stopped obsessing over the number of daily cases, and we’re now focused on the progress in relation to the vaccine,” he said. “This is the grand bargain, and if you get your vaccination you get your life back.”

Sydney Airport on Wednesday revealed it fell to a $145 million full-year loss, compared to a $403 million profit a year earlier, after the COVID-19 pandemic slowed passenger numbers to a trickle.

Revenue fell by 51 per cent to $803 million in the 12 months to December 31, with traffic falling 75 per cent to just 11 million passengers.

The company scrapped its dividend and did not provide guidance for when payouts might resume given the uncertainty around when the market will recover.

The $16 billion airport operator said it expected to stay within its debt covenants. It had $3.5 billion in available liquidity at December 31, comprising $1.1 billion cash and $2.4 billion of undrawn debt at December 31.

Sydney Airport boosted its balance sheet last year to see it through a sustained shutdown, with a $2 billion equity raising through a renounceable entitlement offer, a $600 million bond placement and $850 million in additional banking facilities.

Sydney Airport also announced that prominent director David Gonski will replace Trevor Gerber as chairman after its annual general meeting in May. Mr Gerber has been chairman for six years and on the board for 19 years.

Mr Gonski has been on the company’s board for two and a half years, previously served as a director at Singapore Airlines from 2006 to 2012 and recently stepped down as ANZ chairman.

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Source: Thanks smh.com