Opinion: Slot change now not such a gamble

In 2021 Rex was fighting a lonely battle to change airport rules, but now the tide appears to be turning

Two years ago, John Sharp, the deputy chairman of Rex, gave a speech at the CAPA aviation conference in Sydney where he spoke on the then-rarely discussed topic of airport take-off slots. Given its – shall we be frank – rather dull technicalities, Sharp sprinkled his words with his usual sense of mischief and razzamatazz.

“I want to talk to you,” he began, “a little bit about one of the barriers that we face – and anyone else who wants to grow the airline business in Australia faces – and that’s the restrictions that apply to Sydney Airport. They were not caused by Sydney Airport. They were caused by” – he paused for effect – “um… me, many years ago in another life when I put a cap of movements to Sydney Airport at 80 movements per hour. And to make that function, we tried a thing called the slot system.”