Terminal frustration at Adelaide
By Michelle Wiese Bockmann, The Australian | Jan. 24, 2006
Adelaide's new airport terminal is virtually empty and losing half a million dollars a week. Michelle Wiese Bockmann asks who's to blame.
South Australia's Premier is angry. The state's tourism chief is frustrated. And the airport manager is just plain embarrassed. Adelaide's new $260million airport terminal remains closed to domestic traffic more than three months after Prime Minister John Howard officially opened it.
Nobody has any idea when it will be opened, although the airport's privately owned operator, Adelaide Airport Ltd, has hinted the best he can hope for is "early February".
But no one is holding his breath. More than half a dozen dates have come and gone, each superseded by problems with the underground network of pipes to supply fuel to aircraft.
"There's nothing more I can do here except wait for the issues to be resolved," says Phil Baker, the managing director of Adelaide Airport Ltd. "We're waiting for the contractor and the fuel company to tell us that they are ready to go. It's not the airport itself that is responsible or to blame."
In fact, Adelaide Airport has blamed everyone and everything else for the embarrassing three-month delay, which is costing it about $500,000 a week.
Fuel supplier Exxon Mobil, and the company contracted to build the terminal, Hansen Yuncken, are top of the blame list.
Last October, a section of pipe feeding fuel supplies to the network was found to be contaminated by an anti-corrosion substance mistakenly used in the fuel pumping system.
Adelaide Airport revealed the problem just three days after the official opening on October 7 and eight days before airlines were to begin using the terminal. Baker forecast a one-week delay to fix it. But one week has stretched into 15 and Exxon Mobil has been criticised for seeking extra tests to make sure the pipes are safe and clean.
But as Baker took a two-week holiday in early January, testing revealed more problems. The entire network of kilometres of pipes was found to be heavily contaminated with sediment and debris, including pieces of concrete. Despite intensive brushing three times, it has yet to be flushed clean.
When contacted yesterday, Hansen Yuncken boss Peter Kennedy would say little, except that he is working with all parties to fix the problem. He refused to confirm or deny reports that Hansen Yuncken was incurring penalties of $40,000 a day. Kennedy had previously pointed the finger at the sub-contractor chosen to install the fuel delivery system, Adelaide-based Ottoway Engineering.
Ottoway managing director Ronald Burrows is also just back from holidays, in Manila. The company told The Australian that Hansen Yuncken had advised him not to comment.
When asked if Adelaide Airport Ltd is happy with Ottoway's performance, Baker laughs. "I can't answer that question ... I don't know the answer. They were the sub-contractor, something went wrong, I don't know if it was them or not, or Hansen Yuncken."
The estimated 100,000 interstate passengers who fly into Adelaide each week are being forced to use the delapidated, 50-year-old domestic terminal next door during one of the busiest periods of the state's tourism calendar.
Well past its use-by date, it's frayed and tatty, many of the shops are closed, and the terminal's airconditioning barely coped with the weekend's searing temperatures.
The new terminal is open for limited business, but only because regional and international airlines agreed to temporarily refuel their planes using tankers. Many of the 33 shops in the pristine retail precinct remain empty, without enough custom from the 6700 international and 7300 regional passengers a week to justify opening.
Adelaide Airport is likely to lose about $5million as a result of the debacle. Baker won't confirm any figure but agrees it will be millions. He won't discuss legal action or penalties in the contract with Hansen Yuncken either, but the dispute is clearly headed for the courts.
Qantas is one airline that is not mincing words about what it thinks about the fracas.
"We would like to see more action. [Adelaide Airport] needs to take responsibility and get things operable," says Grant Fenn, the airline's executive general manager for airports. "It's not good enough to stand behind the contractors."
Fenn says Qantas heard talk about problems with the fuel hydrant system as far back as early August. A senior Qantas manager then questioned Baker at a mid-September meeting about the rumours.
"Adelaide Airport said there were no issues, despite the fact they were well known," says Fenn. He has also taken a swipe at the airport over the unsuitability of the tarmac at parking bays used by its regional operator, QantasLink.
Fenn says Qantas told Adelaide Airport "in good faith" what aircraft it thought it would use but "it's a very dynamic industry and that's changed".
Fenn says Baker hasn't provided an adequate response. "We were fully expecting the terminal to be capable of handling QantasLink aircraft," he says. Qantas is also unimpressed with the extra costs and inconvenience, and says the information flow could be improved.
"We are yet to know when we can see an operable fuel hydrant system," says Fenn.
Exxon Mobil spokesman Alan Bailey says pressure testing has shown no leaks in the fuel lines. Although there was "rather a lot" of sediment contaminating the pipes, it "relates back to the construction process", Bailey says.
"It's not appropriate for us to get involved in speculation into how material did or didn't get in there," he says.
The Labor Government wants the mess cleaned up before it faces the electorate on March 18, especially after Premier Mike Rann used the glittering opening as a backdrop to praise the state's go-ahead direction.
In November the Government didn't figure the airport delays were an issue. Transport Minister Patrick Conlon claimed there was "no need to start worrying too much about it". But last week, amid rising public pressure for a solution, Rann conceded "nothing has angered me more".
Like other cabinet members questioned about the fiasco, Rann is trying to distance the Government from the controversy. But it has kicked in $12million for the project and is at great pains to point out the airport is on federal land, operated by a private company.
"I would love ... advice on how I am to fix a fuel line on a property that I don't own and I don't have the power to [regulate]," Rann says. The Premier and Conlon are scheduled to meet Baker and contractors this week for an update on the embarrassing delays.
With Adelaide preparing for a series of high-profile sporting events and festivals, South Australian Tourism Commission head Phil Hoffmann has admitted what everyone is thinking by saying the delays have made Adelaide a laughing stock interstate. Conlon describes the situation as deeply frustrating.
"I have dealt with this ... virtually on a daily basis, and what has been put to us over and over is it is best that the parties resolve the issues themselves.
"I think I am going to try and get the parties together and see what assistance we can get to have an overall resolution, because this has become a deep frustration for all of us."
Passengers agree. Arriving from Melbourne, David Uhrig described the old terminal as "looking like it's on life support".
"That's why the state Government should be doing something about it," he says. "At the end of the day it might be private money but it's the taxpayers of the state that are affected. Mr Rann should be down there, knocking on doors and getting it fixed."
Regional passengers have also complained about the long walk from their planes, across the tarmac and through the terminal to reach the baggage claim area. The walk is between 300m and 600m, according to Baker, who says a second moving walkway is planned.
Robert Sinclair, a pest control contractor returning from Sydney, believes there has "been a collapse in quality control".
"When you use contractors and it's not supervised properly this is what happens."
His wife Kerry agrees. "The place is dirty and untidy. They don't want to spend any money because the other place is also open."