Hey Guys,
I found out via Peter Bamford (founder), who was talking to Frank about a month ago that this might happen this year. The original contract to run Airside Tarmac Tours at Sydney Airport was for ten years expiring around the middle of this year (yes it did run for about 2 years before a formal contract was drawn up). It looks to me that SACL has simply decided to not renew the contract. Perhaps they see no benefit in a company that contributes no significant amount to the bottom line.
I don't think that they have looked hard enough at the benefits that a tour like this has provided in the last 12 or so years.
I would estimate (based on my own rough calculations) that the tours have shown over 180,000 school children and close to 40,000 adults over the last dozen or so years, what really happens inside the fence at Australia's busiest and most important airport. In my time driving around the airport, I have carried people who could sway a bit of opinion if they wanted to throw their weight around. Peter Overton was a more than one time visitor and I believe that he has a pretty close connection to a fairly reputable current affairs program who might like the human interest content in a story about a hard working husband and wife business being snuffed out because a huge corporation didn't think. Ernie Dingo, Kieran Perkins, Mike Whitney, Michael Pascoe, and others. These are all people who have stepped off the tour bus and said "that was great/awesome/spectacular".......you get the picture. I once got an email from a bloke who came on the tour when he was at school and it inspired him to become a pilot he was letting me know that he just got passed his CPL. Who knows how many people have been affected in a positive way. Who knows if someone has been at a dinner party listening to someone prattle on about how aircraft have no place in a city bringing down the real estate price and said "Hang on! I've been out there and I've seen what goes on and did you know that that place contributes in some way to the creation of 1 in every 8 jobs in this city?" and so on.
If anyone out there is a budding Tropfest doco maker, what a great piece of subject matter. If someone knows how to get on to some of these celebs then please let us know maybe one of them will get on the band wagon and we can actually do something about this.
I drove tours of the airfield at Sydney Airport for both Peter and Frank & Sherrie for close to ten years and I literally had the time of my life doing it. To see them come to an end because of short sightedness would be a dead set tragedy.
I will try to find some email addresses and see if anyone will take up the fight but I'm sure an avalanche of emails would make more of an impact.
Cheers for now and I will try to stay in touch.
Ian McManus
Sorry to prattle on so long.......Hey Amsy, long time no see.
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