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'Dumb' airport to be redone
TRAVELCONSUMERDAILY.COM WORK WILL begin in the next few months on the $1 billion transformation of Perth Airport – along with Sydney, arguably one of the great idiocies of 20th century airport design where domestic and international terminals are separated by a time-consuming taxi ride. The Australian Transport Minister Anthony Albanese has announced federal approval for the first major stage of the project, the $136 million "Terminal WA", a 20-gate domestic terminal designed specifically to cater for services within Western Australia, including the huge number of charters shuttling "fly-in fly-out" workers to and from the state’s remote mining operations. The minister says aviation charter services in Western Australia have increased by 41 per cent in just seven years – from 23,650 aircraft movements in 2002 to 33,300 in 2009 or more than 90 a day. Currently, these charter and regional flights use the existing domestic Terminal 3 and general aviation facilities at Perth Airport, placing increasing strain on the airport’s capacity to serve commercial flights and their passengers. Terminal WA, adjoining the current international terminal will be completed in 2012 and have 20 aircraft bays that can process up to 1800 passengers each hour at its peak – a 50 per cent increase over the current capacity of Terminal 3. "I expect the airport owners to continue to work closely with the Western Australian Government to improve road access, including a direct link to the Tonkin Highway as well as a new on-airport road connecting the domestic and international precincts," Mr Albanese said. The roads strategy document, due to be completed by the middle of this year, will be crucial if it is to avoid an increase in travel time from the airport to the Perth CBD. At the moment, the international terminal area, which will be the centre of the new complex on the east side of the airport, is substantially further away from the city and requires a taxi ride of up to 20 minutes from the west side’s old domestic terminal, which will become the new general aviation area. Mr Albanese has also approved the western concourse terminal extension at Canberra Airport. This new multi-level passenger terminal is the second stage of Canberra Airport’s $350 million terminal upgrade and is expected to be completed in 2012. It will be up to 40,000 square metres in size and located partly over the existing terminal site and partly over the existing Qantas maintenance facility. Canberra Airport currently handles three million passengers per year, a figure that is expected to more than double to 6.3 million in the next 20 years. Comment on this article |
