84 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION
A
ny parent who has undertaken
the relatively tedious task of
visiting the local hardware store
on a mission to top up the kids’
sandpit knows that a 20kg bag of sand
weighs ... well, 20kg and that means
more than a bit of back-bending to get
it on to the shopping trolley. Multiply
that by an average sandpit top-up of
six bags and you might wish you had
done a few more weights down at the
gym.
Or maybe you are a do-it-
yourselfer ready to lay a set of
pavers or a patio. It takes a lot of
patience, a lot of shovelling, and
a lot of wheelbarrowing to shift a
single cubic metre of sand dumped
unceremoniously in your driveway by
the landscape supplier’s delivery truck.
So spare a thought for a project
that has relied for its very success on
just a tad more sand – like another
10,999,999 cubic metres.
No, this is not a misplaced feature
fromDubai Landscaper’s Monthly.
Instead, it is just one of the mind-
boggling statistics behind the largest
aviation project in Australia: the
construction of a parallel runway at
Brisbane’s International Airport.
The eight-year project at a total cost
of up to $1.3 billion is at the leading
edge of a decade-long, $3.8 billion
pattern of transformation that has
seen Brisbane (BNE) consolidate its
position as the third busiest airport
in Australia – and with ambition to
further match it with its southern key
gateway counterparts in Sydney and
Melbourne.
Once fully operational in 2020, the
runway will effectively double BNE’s
current capacity, drawing comparisons
with Singapore’s Changi and Hong
Kong International. Combined
with the attraction of Queensland
as a prime visitor destination, it is a
compelling story that BNE’s parent,
the Brisbane Airport Corporation, is
eagerly taking to the world.
The traffic foundations are already
in place with its two major terminals
offering services to around 22 million
passengers a year. And in a possible
sign of things to come, BNE has seen a
recent upsurge in connections through
Chinese operators such as China
Eastern, China Airlines and Hainan
Airlines, including an inaugural Air
China, Brisbane-Beijing service from
December.
The fastest-growing airport in
Australia now caters to 32 airlines
flying to around 70 national and 29
international destinations with freight
handling (import and export FY16-17)
of more than 112,000 tonnes.
The next step is foundations of a
very different kind.Shifting sand
Anyone occupying a window seat as
their flight completes a circuit over the
blue waters of Moreton Bay to line up
with Brisbane’s runway 19 can’t miss
the massive swathe of white off to the
right of the terminal infrastructureand almost touching the tip of cross
runway 14.
That’s what millions of cubic
metres of sand looks like –
representing the reclamation of more
than 360 hectares of boggy marshland,
covered largely in casuarina scrub,
to deliver a runway 3,300 metres
long and 60 metres wide and with an
associated 12 kilometres of taxiways
(the current main 01/19 runway is
3,560 x 45 metres).
The very nature of the land, a
former river delta, lying low and
abutting Moreton Bay, has presented
a huge logistical challenge and is the
key reason why the project has an
eight-year timeline. This has never
been a case of speedy land clearing
and grading before laying asphalt
and concrete, but rather a complexBNE-feat
WRITER: STEVE GIBBONSBrisbane Airport draws a
$1.3 billion line in the sand
An aerial overview of the
new parallel runway site as it
appeared in November.
BRISBANE AIRPORT