I read this the other day on the Sunshine Coast News website and it caught my attention: “Tourism, business and government representatives have attended a key forum to discuss the growth of the Sunshine Coast Airport and its impact on the region”.
The forum was about future expansion of our airport. Now, I was a bit puzzled that the mayor never sent me an invitation as I could have really had an input – particularly on where we have come in 50 years.
You may not know this, but I was a former airport manager of the then Maroochy Airport. I could have critiqued the current CEO’s job description to what mine was then. I bet he doesn’t have a job description that looked like mine did in 1976.
Air traffic control was a major part of my job. The pilot would radio in, I would look out the window at the sock and guess what the wind speed was, look into the sky and estimate how high the ceiling level was if it was cloudy and basically say, “Good luck”.
I was the firefighter if a plane crashed, as there was just a garden hose and one fire extinguisher – luckily no crashes. I did all the check-ins and all the announcements, and ticketing if need be. On days of full flights, I’d actually weigh the passengers as well as their bags, which was an interesting exercise. I had to handle all freight movement as well – mostly strawberries (and most of that made it on the plane).
My least-favourite job was lost baggage. Obviously it was my fault when some pompous Victorian found out their bag never made it to Maroochy. I had to constantly remind them that abusing me was not helping to get their bag back.
Did I mention there was only one flight a day but two on the holidays, which used to push my anxiety levels up a bit as it was double the work. Did I also mention my ‘manager’ position had a staff of one: me.
We had bus contractors Henry and John (great blokes) and there was Pat Hughes who was really running the show by doing the catering and refuelling.
The airport has come a very long way in 50 years and hopefully they will be planning how to keep moving in the right direction.
I’ll keep sitting by the post box, waiting for my invite to the next airport expansion meeting.
Ashley Robinson is Mets Caloundra CEO, chairman of Thunder Netball and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
