A Brimbank councillor has called on Melbourne Airport to invest more in the Keilor area after it was revealed the airport raked in more revenue from carparking than any other airport in Australia.
Councillor Virginia Tachos said more planes were flying over Keilor than ever before and it was time the airport “invested back into the community it impacted most”.
The airport took in $135.5 million from parking in 2015-16, $79.9 million of which was profit.
According to a new report by Australia’s competition watchdog, Melbourne Airport makes an average annual $3000 profit from each of its 25,900 car spots.
The number of carparking spaces has doubled in the past 10 years.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report also revealed Melbourne Airport had the largest growth in passenger numbers in 2015-16 – to 34 million passengers.
“Considering how much profit they’re making, I’d like it to invest back into the community,” Cr Tachos said. “It’s great, it creates local jobs, but there are a lot of adverse impacts – there are more planes at night and traffic on Arundel Road has quadrupled.
“There are a lot of residents telling me the noise is impacting them – maybe the airport could subsidise sound-proofing.”
She suggested the airport could join Brimbank council in revitalising parkland abutting its south-west border.
A Melbourne Airport spokesman said the communities around the airport were “extremely important” to it, with two-thirds of its staff living locally.
He said the airport had been a corporate partner since 2010 of Western Chances, which provides scholarships to young people living in the western suburbs. The spokesman said the airport also had a community development fund that offered additional scholarships.
“What we would love to see is more local schools getting involved with these programs,” he said. “We’d strongly urge schools in Brimbank to get in touch with these organisations to participate in the programs.”
Melbourne Airport’s profit margin from carparking shrank 11 per cent in 2015-16, but ACCC chairman Rod Sims said this was due to an accounting change, not a big drop in revenue.
