Sydney Airport’s outspoken chairman, Max Moore-Wilton, has dismissed growing expectations that the Abbott government will begin work on a second airport for the city within the next three years.

A day after he played down an infamous royal prank as ‘‘shit happens’’, Mr Moore-Wilton said people needed to be careful that Sydney did not end up with an airport ‘‘that goes nowhere’’.

"When people tell me that the concrete trucks are going to start pouring in the first term of this government, boy oh boy, I wonder what they have been smoking," ... Max Moore-Wilton.

‘‘When people tell me that the concrete trucks are going to start pouring in the first term of this government, boy oh boy, I wonder what they have been smoking,’’ he said.

Mr Moore-Wilton cited as an example the Canadian city of Montreal, which had built a second airport for the Olympic Games, only to eventually shut it down because of a lack of demand.