Another day, another upgrade – a day in the life of Brisbane Airport

One of many planned infrastructure upgrades was unveilled at Brisbane Airport this week as 68,000 square metres of new parking space for aircraft opened at the Domestic Terminal. The new terminal ‘apron’ will be used for aircraft parking, refuelling and boarding.

The new apron provides space for up to eight aircraft and will be mainly used by Qantas, Virgin Australia, Tiger and Jetstar. It also provides the extra apron capacity that will be needed as the gates at the northern end of the terminal are expanded in the years to come.

Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) Acting CEO Tim Rothwell says this apron expansion is one of many steps Brisbane Airport is taking to meet forecast demand as the front door to Queensland.

“In 2011/12, Brisbane Airport welcomed more than 21 million passengers and by 2029 we are expecting over 33 million passengers,” he said. “This means we need to keep building bigger and better infrastructure to be prepared for that growth. Over the next ten years we are investing over $2.5 billion in airport infrastructure, including a new parallel runway, apron and taxiway upgrades, access road upgrades and a number of new commercial buildings.

“We have recently opened the final piece of our $350m Domestic Terminal Upgrade, the early works on our $1.3b New Parallel Runway are under way and we are already quite progressed in developing our 2014 Master Plan.

All of this activity, along with numerous other developments, demonstrates that Brisbane Airport is pulling out all stops to provide world class infrastructure. This reinforces our vision of delivering world best facilities and services while creating serious economic benefits for Queensland and Australia,” Mr Rothwell said.

In the coming weeks, a similar apron and taxiway expansion will open at the International Terminal. The expanded international apron area will provide up to four extra aircraft parking bays and the new section of taxiway will improve the capacity of the overall taxiway system.

Further apron expansions are scheduled to commence construction in 2013 at the southern end of the Domestic Terminal. The apron opened this week was constructed using approximately 30,000 cubic metres of concrete and 2,000 tonnes of asphalt.