<\/p>\n
The Federal Government has opened the final round of its Remote Airstrip Upgrade Program, with $25 million available for safety and accessibility upgrades at airports and airstrips across remote Australia.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Australian Airports Association (AAA) has welcomed Round 12 of the program and is encouraging eligible airports to apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $4 million.<\/p>\n However, the industry body is calling for the Government to go further, arguing regional and remote airports need a permanent funding mechanism rather than relying on individual grant rounds.<\/p>\n AAA Acting CEO Natalie Heazlewood said the latest funding was \u201cincredibly important\u201d, but called for more sustainable support for regional and remote aviation infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cThe latest figures show regional aviation is not in inevitable decline,\u201d Heazlewood said.<\/p>\n Passenger demand across regional and remote Australia remains strong, with more than 5.4 million passenger trips recorded on remote routes in 2025-26 \u2014 12.3 per cent above pre-Covid levels.<\/p>\n More than 24 million passenger trips were recorded across regional and remote routes, despite the number of flights falling 1.4 per cent over the year.<\/p>\n Heazlewood said the figures highlighted the importance of maintaining airport infrastructure as airlines consolidate services through fewer frequencies and larger aircraft.<\/p>\n \u201cRegional airports face many of the same fixed costs regardless of how many flights operate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cRunway maintenance, security, safety requirements and essential infrastructure upgrades still need to be funded whether an airport receives one flight a day or ten.\u201d<\/p>\n The AAA\u2019s latest independent research found 73 per cent of surveyed regional airports operated at a loss in 2024-25, with a median operating loss of $519,000.<\/p>\n Heazlewood said many airports were effectively being supported by local councils and ratepayers because their connectivity was considered essential to their communities.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the economics of regional and remote aviation already so thin, a permanent funding mechanism from the Federal Government would give airports the certainty they need to maintain critical infrastructure and help ensure communities remain connected,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n kabarsula SLOT <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Federal Government has opened the final round of its Remote Airstrip Upgrade Program, with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kabarsula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}