The Emerald Airport is owned and operated by the Central Highlands Regional Council (CHRC) as a commercial business unit. The airport provides vital connectivity between the more populated coastal regions and the rural and mining communities in the west. In 2019, Council developed the Emerald Airport Master Plan to outline the short, medium and long-term development goals for the airport as well as identifying projected infrastructure delivery implementation plans. In the same year, CHRC also developed the Airport Services Strategic Business Plan to identify the vision and long-term strategic goals for the airport.
GenEng Solutions was commissioned to assess these plans and develop an action plan that would convert both the vision and long-term strategic goals for the airport into specific actions within each functional area of airport operations.
Approach
This included developing the following:
- An Emerald Airport Staff Skills matrix
- An Emerald Airport Advisory Committee Evaluation Framework
- Reporting Structures for the Emerald Airport Business Unit
- An Action Plan incorporating different areas of the running of the airport including Services and Market, Asset Management, Operations, Financial, and Performance
Our team worked closely with airport staff to ensure that the Action Plan dove-tailed well with the Business Plan and to ensure that the document would be included in operational outcomes.
Challenges
The integration of the Airport Business into a commercial business unit of Council and maintaining the operational connection to the governance arrangements of Council was one of the main challenges of the project. Effective Airport operation is essential for the economic development potential of the region and as with any business, it is required to make a commercial return without being constrained by community service obligations. The Fly-in-Fly out market makes a significant contribution to the income and the risks of introducing new private runways in close proximity to the destination required consideration.
An Asset Management approach to operations was critical to ensure that the service level of the facilities adhered to the regulatory requirements of Federal Aviation authorities.
Outcomes
The development of an Action Plan to be implemented over the short, medium and long term, assisted the operations in the prioritising of actions relevant to emerging needs. The Staff Skills Matrix provided management with the opportunity to identify the competency levels of staff in relation to the positional needs and contributed to the development of a training plan.
The Airport Advisory Committee Evaluation Framework was established to value-add by helping the Committee focus on the airport’s strategic opportunities rather than focussing on operations. The objectives of the Committee’s terms of reference were the focus of the framework so that relevance of the Committee could be maintained.