Virgin Australia to open Darwin, Alice Springs lounges next week

I believe the issue at both TSV and HBA is getting suitable space assigned by the airport owners.  

Wessa,

Regarding TSV, where would they put a VA lounge ? QF barely manages.

cheers

Some things work better when run by the private sector, but absolute monopolies like capital airports generally don't. Much revenue gained, not a whole lot reinvested in airport development. At least CBR and ADL are some that have made an effort in reinvesting in their airport in a significant way.

HBA doesn't seem to give a stuff. 

Do you mean like Sydney Airport Holdings? The private sector owner of Sydney airport...

Any privately owned airport, that despite generating healthy turnover, has seen little change in the quality of it's common spaces.

There are a few major Australian airports where the only substantitive improvements are those paid for, not by the airport, but by the leasee of that space within the airport. Our major airports definitely don't rank among the world's best by considerable gap, despite the high charges these airports comparatively charge to other airports around the world.

I'm not following you now Gipps...

Your earlier comment "Some things work better when run by the private sector" in the context of your response indicates that you feel that HBA being owned by the TAS government is a core issue around the lack of a VA lounge - if it was privately owned then you feel the situation would be different? 

Yet now you seem to contradict that...

You do realise that HBA was privatised? Just as SYD, MEL etc was. That lease was operated by a Tasmanian Government company (Hobart Ports Corporation, etc) - which operated at arms length to the Government itself, but was sold off in Dec 2007 to a Macqaurie Capital consortium (the silver donut). 

HBA is as much state owned as SYD is (or a lot of our ports are) - that is under lease to third party. There are no capital city airports in Australia under government control, all are run by private operators. It is the private operator that runs the airport, not the Government.

From Hobart Airport's own website:

Corporate profile

Hobart International Airport Pty Ltd (HIAPL) operates the Hobart Airport... HIAPL is owned by the Tasmanian Gateway Consortium, which is a joint venture between two major Australian superannuation investment companies:

• 50.1% share owned by Macquarie Global Infrastructure Fund III (GIF III)
• 49.9% share owned by Retirement Benefits Fund (RBF) Board

The silver donut is the majority operator of HBA, the TAS State Government has no direct involvement with HBA.

Both HBA and SYD have a similar entity in the respective operating companies - the silver donut is a major presence on the management boards of both.

Gipps,

Maybe its the unrelenting heat here in Brisbane and I've mis-read your posts - but we are both on the same page...

1. No, I did not research the ownership structure of HBA (my bad - but in my defence, it is Hobart...)
2. I misinterpreted your first post because of #1 (I put this down to 'our bad')

It's no problem, markpk, it's often a maze identifying who are the actual operators of our airports are thanks to the plethora of holding companies and controlling interests. HBA is one of the few sites that are a bit more upfront, but it's not exactly in bold letters on the front page lol.

I assumed, once I got past the confusion, that it was a clash between who owns the airports (the Commonwealth still technically does) and who actually operates the airports. I thought, in particular, you might have been going from memory past and therefore were unaware that the Tassie Government relinquished it's connections for $350ish million last decade. Information was provided to advise, as I imagine most don't follow airport operator changes in great detail.

To reassert my opinion in another way, I think the odds are more likely (but not absolutely certain) that if our major airports were still run by a public trust (or possibly to a somewhat lesser likelihood, a government owned enterprise) they'd be in a far superior state today. That said, privately run capital airports can re-invest (i.e. Canberra) but there is a general tendency not to do so because there isn't much incentive when you have a monopolistic business.

Sorry, run by a public trust (a vehicle I think would work well) or still by a government owned enterprise (apologies for any confusion).

To bring this discussion thread back on-topic, this article is about the opening of Virgin Australia's new lounges in Darwin and Alice Springs, not the ownership structure of airports in Tasmania.

Hi Colin, we'll check once the lounge has opened and will let you know.