Sydney Airport wants regulations eased
Sydney Airport boss Kerrie Mather wants to see restrictions eased on the number of flights that can take off and land at the airport.
Currently, there is a federal government-imposed cap of 80 aircraft movements an hour at the airport, which is in turn broken down to 20 movements every 15 minutes.
Ms Mather said the regulation could work better without the 15 minute cap.
She said the 15 minute cap meant planes were often stuck on the tarmac, burning fuel while waiting for the minutes to tick over.
"The administration of some of those restrictions...that's an easy one to deal with," she said.
Ms Mather said the combination of the movement cap, the airport's 11pm to 6am curfew and noise-sharing regulations designed to spread air traffic across Sydney made it harder for the airport to operate efficiently.
"The confluence of all of those things actually make it a lot less efficient to manage the system than it could be," she said.
She said while the curfew was "not unusual" for airports operating close to a city, the noise-sharing rules were a burden on travellers.
"You'll notice that sometimes you go north to go south and that one hour flight turns into an hour and a half to go to Melbourne, that's noise sharing," she said.
Ms Mather also backed the federal government's review of the cost of departure taxes and visas.
She said while visas were typically free for European visitors arriving in Australia, Chinese nationals had to pay up to $130, which hampered efforts to attract more tourists from Asia.
"For visitors from our growth markets the cost of the process are a significant disincentive to discovering Australia, particularly when other destinations have much more flexible visa laws."
