Sydney risks traffic booby prize

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - Sydney's ability to cope with the crush of Olympic Games visitors was thrown into further doubt yesterday by a blackout that closed the city's airport for the second time in less than a month.

The blackout, which halted about 20 international and domestic flights and delayed thousands of travellers for 80 minutes, also followed a power failure on Monday that closed down three blocks of the central business district.

And it came amid mounting concern over repeated problems with the city's rail network and the exodus of an estimated 2000 taxi drivers spooked by in the wake of the introduction of GST.

Even if the transport system is up and working as planned by the start of the Games opening ceremony on September 15, the official spectator guide warns that visitors should prepare for trips of three hours or more from the city to sporting venues.

The number of people packing an already troubled rail network is expected to almost double to 34 million over the 19 days of the Olympics.

The good news for visitors is that the expected overload on Sydney's accommodation has so far failed to materialise, with a survey late last month showing that more than one-third of the city's hotel rooms have yet to be filled.

Yesterday's airport blackout and the earlier incident on July 6 were the most serious warning so far of potential problems, triggering new emergency procedures, alerting the National Crisis Centre in Canberra, and prompting calls for action by the federal Opposition and the Air Traffic Controllers Union.

"With the Olympics coming up with fairly significant increases in traffic and what is turning out to be a fairly unreliable power system, we obviously have some concerns," said the president of the union, Ted Lang.

An urgent investigation has been launched into the cause of the power failure which cut mains electricity to the airport at about 7.30 am local time, halting all takeoffs.

Emergency generators cut in, but were unable to adequately power more than four air traffic control consoles to handle incoming flights.

Chaos was increased by the earlier diversion of flights from fog-bound airports at Melbourne - redirected to Canberra and Newcastle - and dozens of flights held on the ground.

Among the worst affected was an Air New Zealand flight, delayed for 50 minutes.

In the July 6 blackout, both mains and backup power failed for two minutes - during which contact was lost with more than 20 aircraft - compounded by a 10-minute delay while computers rebooted.

Although this incident is still under investigation, Richard Dudley, a spokesman for Airservices Australia - the federal body that is responsible for air traffic control - said the two incidents were not linked.

Transport Minister John Anderson promised that action would be taken urgently.

"Particularly with the Olympics coming up I just seek to reassure people that I will be talking to Airservices Australia and my department," he said.

"I expect them to be able to offer me very solid reassurances indeed on the mechanisms that we will be putting in place to ensure we do not continue to suffer from these sorts of glitches."

Olympic woes also extend to the troubled rail system, which has been hit by almost 30 derailments in the past year, the collision last December which killed seven commuters, and continuing delays, breakdowns and equipment failures.

And state Opposition Leader Kerry Chikarovski has urged the Government to act on the looming taxi crisis, caused by drivers quitting the business because they don't want to pay GST.

"We are going to need every taxi we can find during the Olympics and the Government has a responsibility to make sure those taxis are available."