Airport Link. Picture: Brisconnections Source: The Courier-Mail
THE six executives in charge of Brisbane Airport Link will continue to pocket a total of nearly $44,000 a week while receivers look for a way to dig BrisConnections out of its $3 billion debt.
CEO Ray Wilson earned more than $1 million last year, including a $331,000 "short term incentive" while his executive team shared in bonuses totalling $535,000 on top of their $1.6 million in combined wages.
Chief financial officer Nicholas Lattimore was the second-top earner, pocketing $709,935, while general manager (construction) Charles MacDonald made $654,226.
Incentives were paid for meeting "individual and group goals" including completion of the project before July 31.
Yesterday a spokesman for receiver manager PPB Advisory said for employees and the executive team, Airport Link would operate as normal and everyone would continue to be paid.
"There is no issue there," the spokesman said.
"PPB Advisory is just having a look at everything. No decisions have been made yet."
Company directors also hold thousands of securities in BrisConnections now considered worthless.
Meanwhile, traffic on Brisbane's Airport Link would be permanently gridlocked if vehicle numbers ever got near the level predicted by its owners, says an expert.
Arup - a global engineering, design and planning giant believed to have been paid about $3 million for their Airport Link traffic forecasts - was refusing to answer questions yesterday about how they could get the figures for Airport Link so wrong.
Too much optimism in outlandish traffic projections blamed for BrisConnections' rapid demise.
Arup forecast 168,845 vehicles a day would be using the toll route within four months of its opening last July but the actual number was only 53,313.
"It just doesn't add up that this passed any sensibility check," said Mike Veitch, boss of Brisbane specialist transport and traffic planning consultancy Veitch Lister, whose own modelling a week before Airport Link opened forecast 54,244 vehicles per day.
"All you can conclude is that the procedures (in this case) were flawed - or they could not have come up with that number," he said.
Arup's long-term forecasts were even more optimistic, predicting 195,378 vehicles daily by the end of this year, rising to well over 200,000 in future.
That would make the six-lane road busier than the M25 around London or the two-level 14-lane George Washington Bridge in New York.
"We're looking at traffic congestion profiles like Hong Kong," said Mr Veitch. "The entries and exits to the tunnel would be banked up 24 hours a day, not just at the peak times."
BrisConnections' largest investors are Macquarie Group and Deutsche Group (with 78 per cent between them) and a handful of individuals.
Another traffic forecaster, Aecom Australia, is being sued in the Federal Court by the receivers of the failed RiverCity Motorway company over its projections for vehicle numbers in the $3 billion Clem7 tunnel.
About 100 people are employed to operate Airport Link, including control room staff and technicians, maintenance crews and administrative staff.
BrisConnections chief Dr Ray Wilson at the entrance to the Airport Link tunnel at Stafford before it opened. Picture: Bruce Long
What impact, if any, the financial collapse will have on workers remains unclear.
In the December quarter, more than $3 million was paid in wages, and more than $87 million in interest, finance costs and other working capital.
In the same period, BrisConnections collected $7.2 million in toll revenue. The spokesman said the toll schedule for the tunnel would remain in place for now but the receivers could not rule out changes in future as BrisConnections' financial status is examined.
The tolls of $2 and $2.50 are due to increase to $2.90 and $3.75 on April 18, then rise again to $3.65 and $4.90 in October.
Tuesday's collapse of the company had no noticeable effect on Airport Link patronage, which averaged 47,102 vehicles a day in December.
An Australian Traffic Network spokesman said surface roads were no more congested than usual on Brisbane's northside.
"I think people have got the message that the company's gone under, but the road is still open," he said.
Voluntary administrators McGrathNicol are expected to hold a creditors' meeting next week.
INTO ABYSS: AirportLink tunnel, the latest toll road failure. Picture: Tim Marsden
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