Auckland Airport fuel supply obliterated by digger

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#1869890 21-Sep-2017 06:29

mattwnz:

kryptonjohn:

It's not a crisis, but it is elevated to be news by a breathless media, eager to drum up readership/sales/clicks.

We don't have a housing crisis either? Defining something as a 'crisis' is subjective. Bur RNZ, which is non commercial and NZ owned by taxpayer, is also referring to it as a crisis.

No we have an expectation crisis but that is for another thread.

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Fred99

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#1869901 21-Sep-2017 07:17

Linuxluver:
networkn:

That's quite a selective view. Are you also one of the people who believe NZ's internet is "third world" and "vastly over priced" ?

We have a population of 5M people. Sydney has just under 5M. Easy to justify the cost of a bigger bridge with a larger population and tax base.

You could pretty much apply that to everything else as well.

We should have rail, agreed to the airport, but it's expensive.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was built in 1923 when the population of all Australia was 5.6 million.

(Toronto's Subway system was built when the city had 800,000 people).

The excuse that NZ is small proves to be weak when you look at many other places. They built more when they had the same or less. NZ has too often been too cheap to do it right.

Sydney had a population of well over a million when the harbour bridge was built.

IIRC Auckland's population was less than 500k when the Akl harbour bridge was built.

There's a common issue though - both cities transport planning based on the concept that the private motorcar was the best way to move people around.

In 1923, Sydney had one of the largest tram networks in the world.

ResponseMediaNZ

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#1870020 21-Sep-2017 10:13

amiga500:

NZ has had a long and sorry history of doing things quite poorly & the fuel crisis is but one example.

One pipeline & no real contingency plan for what should happen if it is disrupted for any reason. Go back a few decades & we build a harbour bridge which is inadequate & needs 'clip ons' & then those have problems. Meanwhile in Sydney a harbour bridge is built properly & which now has provision for a dedicated cycle way & a dedicated pedestrian way & with a rail link. Wellington airport with its unsafe runway over run areas. The huge power crisis in Auckland when a cable failed.

How Auckland airport does not have a rail or light rail link to the central city.

How we buy second hand rail ferries & then are 'surprised' when they have the reliability of a BMC car from the 1970's.

How our major airports are routinely affected by fog when in Britain they have had Cat 3 landing systems for decades. How cycle lanes are a joke in Christchurch & only keep cyclists safe for a 100 meters and then disappear. How we buy 105 Light Armoured vehicles & then have to rely on either the Australian or U.S. air force to deploy them. And lets not forget the 100 % pure slogan which is an inconvenient porky!

All this adds up to NZ being a First World adjacent country.

Do you really think there is no Contingency Planning gone on?
This has been planned for and has been exercised by the Auckland Lifelines Group that most agencies dealing with this response sit on and are represented

http://www.civildefence.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/publications/sp-03-12-national-cdem-fuel-plan-part-a.pdf < Main Ministry of CDEM plan but there is also a Auckland Fuel Plan that has RAP outages... This is playing out pretty much to the plan..

Also Auckland Airport has a Cat 3B ILS System.
Definition for Category III B operation. This means that if the horizontal visibility on the runway is greater than 50 metres, and the aircraft and pilot have the appropriate ratings, the aircraft can land

Category II/III system up and running these days would cost at least $6 million per runway, plus at least $10,000 or so per year just to keep it certified and its publications current.

Cheaper to cancel flights than install a system for about 12-16 days / part days that its needed for, also would require all pilots to be Cat 3B ILS certified and that comes at a cost getting it and keeping it current

Beccara

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#1870035 21-Sep-2017 10:18

People who've never had to do a cost v benefit proposal really don't understand cvb at all

Most problems are the result of previous solutions...

All comment's I make are my own personal opinion and do not in any way, shape or form reflect the views of current or former employers unless specifically stated

Dingbatt

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#1870127 21-Sep-2017 11:33

ResponseMediaNZ: -snip-
Also Auckland Airport has a Cat 3B ILS System.
Definition for Category III B operation. This means that if the horizontal visibility on the runway is greater than 50 metres, and the aircraft and pilot have the appropriate ratings, the aircraft can land

Category II/III system up and running these days would cost at least $6 million per runway, plus at least $10,000 or so per year just to keep it certified and its publications current.

Cheaper to cancel flights than install a system for about 12-16 days / part days that its needed for, also would require all pilots to be Cat 3B ILS certified and that comes at a cost getting it and keeping it current

The cost to airlines of a diversion is huge, tens of thousands of dollars for a large aircraft. By comparison, the cost of keeping pilots Cat3 (autoland) qualified is small because it is done as part of recurrency checks. Because fog is the main weather phenomenon that closes NZ airports, and when it's foggy there is normally very little wind, Auckland has only one certified Cat3B runway (Runway 23L). The airport that should have Cat3B and doesn't, is Christchurch. I'm surprised the likes of Emirates and Singapore haven't insisted on it, let alone Air NZ and Jetstar.
When you look at the operating budget of an international airport, the $6M and $10K/yr you quoted is chicken feed. I bet Christchurch spent much more than that on their flash new terminal.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

BlinkyBill

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#1870130 21-Sep-2017 11:40

amiga500:
; Wellington airport with its unsafe runway over run areas.

I’m a big fan of the unsafe runway, landing can be fun, and that’s why our pilots are so good. I like to see Wellington in the list of the world’s least safe airports.

It’s not unsafe ... there is absolutely no need to futz with the Wellington Airport runways.

frankv

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#1870132 21-Sep-2017 11:45

Dingbatt:
ResponseMediaNZ: -snip-

Cheaper to cancel flights than install a system for about 12-16 days / part days that its needed for, also would require all pilots to be Cat 3B ILS certified and that comes at a cost getting it and keeping it current

The cost to airlines of a diversion is huge, tens of thousands of dollars for a large aircraft. By comparison, the cost of keeping pilots Cat3 (autoland) qualified is small because it is done as part of recurrency checks. [snip] I'm surprised the likes of Emirates and Singapore haven't insisted on it, let alone Air NZ and Jetstar.
When you look at the operating budget of an international airport, the $6M and $10K/yr you quoted is chicken feed. I bet Christchurch spent much more than that on their flash new terminal.

Presumably Emirates and SIA and ANZ and JetStar have all done their own cost-benefit analysis and decided that the benefit of insisting on Cat 3B doesn't outweigh the cost (which would after all be passed on to them), despite the huge costs of diversions.

old3eyes

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#1870138 21-Sep-2017 11:56

BlinkyBill:
amiga500:

; Wellington airport with its unsafe runway over run areas.

I’m a big fan of the unsafe runway, landing can be fun, and that’s why our pilots are so good. I like to see Wellington in the list of the world’s least safe airports.

It’s not unsafe ... there is absolutely no need to futz with the Wellington Airport runways.

I used to hate flying into Wellington on those Ansett Wisper Jets with no engine breaking relying 100% on wheel breaks. No room for a break failure.

Regards,

Old3eyes

Fred99

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#1870165 21-Sep-2017 12:18

old3eyes:

BlinkyBill:
amiga500:

; Wellington airport with its unsafe runway over run areas.

I’m a big fan of the unsafe runway, landing can be fun, and that’s why our pilots are so good. I like to see Wellington in the list of the world’s least safe airports.

It’s not unsafe ... there is absolutely no need to futz with the Wellington Airport runways.

I used to hate flying into Wellington on those Ansett Wisper Jets with no engine breaking relying 100% on wheel breaks. No room for a break failure.

I loved those things (BAe146).

They were flying at the same time Air NZ were still using hush-kitted 737s which were still noisy, rattly and quite tatty things.

Ansett may have been a commercial failure, but they heralded change for the better in the domestic airline market.

tripper1000

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#1870166 21-Sep-2017 12:20

Dingbatt:
ResponseMediaNZ: -snip-

Also Auckland Airport has a Cat 3B ILS System.
Definition for Category III B operation. This means that if the horizontal visibility on the runway is greater than 50 metres, and the aircraft and pilot have the appropriate ratings, the aircraft can land

Category II/III system up and running these days would cost at least $6 million per runway, plus at least $10,000 or so per year just to keep it certified and its publications current.

Cheaper to cancel flights than install a system for about 12-16 days / part days that its needed for, also would require all pilots to be Cat 3B ILS certified and that comes at a cost getting it and keeping it current

The cost to airlines of a diversion is huge, tens of thousands of dollars for a large aircraft. By comparison, the cost of keeping pilots Cat3 (autoland) qualified is small because it is done as part of recurrency checks. Because fog is the main weather phenomenon that closes NZ airports, and when it's foggy there is normally very little wind, Auckland has only one certified Cat3B runway (Runway 23L). The airport that should have Cat3B and doesn't, is Christchurch. I'm surprised the likes of Emirates and Singapore haven't insisted on it, let alone Air NZ and Jetstar.
When you look at the operating budget of an international airport, the $6M and $10K/yr you quoted is chicken feed. I bet Christchurch spent much more than that on their flash new terminal.

Airlines are always looking for ways to trim the cost of diverts. If a $6M system was the way to go, it would be done. Truth is that a $6M system won't lessen the divert gas aircraft must carry because not all diverts are due to fog. Airlines paid to have the military runway at Ohakea upgraded (widened I believe) to shorten their divert distances from Auckland (formerly Chch) and lessen the extra contingency gas they have to carry. They're able to drop into Ohakea, wait for the issue at AKL to be resolved and pick up some gas. Examples of this arrangement being used can be found here. Link1 Link2 Link3 Link4. In the 4th link you can see 3 RNZAF tankers queued up refuelling an A380. This arrangement reduces the cost of tickets for inwards bound passengers.

tripper1000

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#1870201 21-Sep-2017 12:32

Update on the above, the Ohakea widening happened years ago and the runway has since been completely renewed/replaced in 2003. Who knew it was the 3rd longest runway in New Zealand? This is an example of the government looking after the strategic interests of the country (or our inwards bound transit links) where the commercial world is not/can not.

frankv

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#1870252 21-Sep-2017 13:36

Linuxluver:
You're normalising incompetence. Yes, there absolutely almost always are people who warned that something was being done poorly. They are very often absolutely correct.

They aren't the problem. The problem is decision-makers who tried to do critical stuff on the cheap and who don't learn from experience.

If we had plenty of money, we could make all our infrastructure better and more reliable. But there will *never* be enough money for everything. So someone has to make decisions on what to spend on, and what not to. And whether to go for the gold-plated guaranteed-100%-reliable (yeah right) system, or to go for something half the cost and 99% reliable.

If there ever is a failure, the nay-sayers will immediately leap up and complain about the "on the cheap" solution installed, and conveniently forget that the gold-plated version wasn't affordable, or would have increased petrol costs throughout Auckland, and the price of air tickets in/out of Auckland.

From the fact that there were reports done in 2011 and 2005, it's clear that the reliability of the fuel supply to Auckland was of concern. And that at Governmental levels it was decided that the cost of mitigation was too high. The last report, of course, fell within the realm of the National Government.

Since the next scheduled run of the pig was October, it's clear that there was also monitoring and preventative maintenance done on the pipeline itself. In hindsight, it's obvious that pig runs weren't done often enough, perhaps because the corrosion rate in acidic soils wasn't taken into account. IIRC, the pig schedule was biennial. If that was based on all known relevant facts, and some new unknown (and previously unknowable) factor caused this failure, despite significant margins being allowed, then there is no incompetence. Presumably the pig schedule will now be increased to annual, at some cost ($10K?) to the pipeline's budget and some decrease in productivity.

mattwnz

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#1870261 21-Sep-2017 13:52

frankv:

Linuxluver:
You're normalising incompetence. Yes, there absolutely almost always are people who warned that something was being done poorly. They are very often absolutely correct.

They aren't the problem. The problem is decision-makers who tried to do critical stuff on the cheap and who don't learn from experience.

If we had plenty of money, we could make all our infrastructure better and more reliable. But there will *never* be enough money for everything. So someone has to make decisions on what to spend on, and what not to. And whether to go for the gold-plated guaranteed-100%-reliable (yeah right) system, or to go for something half the cost and 99% reliable.

I think it is a bit of a cop out for governments to use that excuse. Also often when more money is available, more money gets wasted, because they don';t need to be as efficient with it. The problem here was solely redundancy, where having a second pipeline would have decreased the risk of this problem occurring. If there is only a single pipe, then the risk IMO of something happening to it in it's life are reasonably high. There are risk assessors that specialise in managing risk like this.

It was't that long ago when Auckland had a big power crisis (1 or 2 decades ago), which I recall was because there was only a single cable into the CBD. When will we learn?

kryptonjohn

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#1870266 21-Sep-2017 14:03

mattwnz:

frankv:

Linuxluver:
You're normalising incompetence. Yes, there absolutely almost always are people who warned that something was being done poorly. They are very often absolutely correct.

They aren't the problem. The problem is decision-makers who tried to do critical stuff on the cheap and who don't learn from experience.

If we had plenty of money, we could make all our infrastructure better and more reliable. But there will *never* be enough money for everything. So someone has to make decisions on what to spend on, and what not to. And whether to go for the gold-plated guaranteed-100%-reliable (yeah right) system, or to go for something half the cost and 99% reliable.

I think it is a bit of a cop out for governments to use that excuse. Also often when more money is available, more money gets wasted, because they don';t need to be as efficient with it. The problem here was solely redundancy, where having a second pipeline would have decreased the risk of this problem occurring. If there is only a single pipe, then the risk IMO of something happening to it in it's life are reasonably high. There are risk assessors that specialise in managing risk like this.

It was't that long ago when Auckland had a big power crisis (1 or 2 decades ago), which I recall was because there was only a single cable into the CBD. When will we learn?

It is too easy to be wise after the event. In reality there are so many important or critical infrastructure items. We can't go spend hundreds of millions on every single one of them in case one falls over.

We'll survive this pipeline issue. We won't survive the spend required to make 100% of infrastructure 100% redundant protected.

frankv

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#1870270 21-Sep-2017 14:15

mattwnz:

frankv:

If we had plenty of money, we could make all our infrastructure better and more reliable. But there will *never* be enough money for everything. So someone has to make decisions on what to spend on, and what not to. And whether to go for the gold-plated guaranteed-100%-reliable (yeah right) system, or to go for something half the cost and 99% reliable.

I think it is a bit of a cop out for governments to use that excuse. Also often when more money is available, more money gets wasted, because they don';t need to be as efficient with it. The problem here was solely redundancy, where having a second pipeline would have decreased the risk of this problem occurring. If there is only a single pipe, then the risk IMO of something happening to it in it's life are reasonably high. There are risk assessors that specialise in managing risk like this.

It's not a government using "that excuse". It's me (IANAG) pointing out a fact.

A second pipeline would have *doubled* the risk of a breakage due to corrosion, but significantly reduced the consequences. It would also have effectively doubled the price.

[Edit... added]

Bear in mind that the engineer's report of 2011 didn't consider the pipeline breaking to be a major risk; they were much more concerned about the loss of the Wiri terminal. Under those circumstances, a government would be brave to put in a second, apparently largely unnecessary, pipeline rather than spending our money on building a second terminal. Which it also chose not to do, instead building motorways and Waterview tunnel, and buying Beemers and helicopters and Navy ships and an apartment in New York and all sorts of other groovy stuff.

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