Dubbo mayor Ben Shields wants the city to make a bid for a $20-million Qantas pilot academy and says “everything needs to be on the table” as part of the push.
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The airline wants a new facility, which would be capable of training up to 500 pilots a year, to be based somewhere in regional Australia.
Qantas made the pilot academy announcement amid cuts to flights across its regional network to deal with a pilot shortage and other challenges.
Cr Shields said it was disappointing the carrier was cutting back flights, but Dubbo had fared better than other regional ports.
“We’re losing only up to eight flights, while I understand other airports are getting hit harder,” he said.
In what he described as a “silver lining”, Cr Shields sees the pilot academy plans as a “real opportunity” for Dubbo, “ideally situated” to host the facility.
On Monday he was set to table a mayoral minute to the Dubbo Regional Council meeting that night seeking support for a bid.
The city would be likely to face strong competition.
Already Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson suggested Tamworth was “ideally placed to make QantasLink’s new pilot academy a success”.
Cr Shields said Dubbo had advantages other regional centres could not match.
The city not only had its regional airport, but there were also airstrips at both Narromine and Bodangora near Wellington, Cr Shields said.
“Using those three runways, you can have synergies where basic pilot instruction and training go on at the smaller airstrips through to when larger craft come in,” he said.
Dubbo was also “a big hub for the Royal Flying Doctor Service”.
“So there’s synergy when it comes to the potential of these two organisations working together,” he said.
“So these are all things that realistically can’t be offered from other regional cities and airports in NSW that Dubbo has the advantage for.”
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When asked if he as mayor would be looking at whether the council would match some of the funding, either in kind or in cash, Cr Shields did not rule it out.
“Everything is on the table when it comes to working with council, and I genuinely mean everything,” he said.
“This is such a facility which would be so beneficial to our locals.
“It will give employment, it will build Dubbo’s reputation as an economic powerhouse for western NSW, so everything is on the table.
“...We need to weigh up any proposals, what we can actually put to them, but in my mind everything needs to be on the table…”