Key construction milestone reached for new Brisbane runway

The new runway for Brisbane Airport has achieved a construction milestone with the first sections of the taxiways connecting the new runway system now completed, reports the Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC).

 

Gert-Jan de Graaff, BAC Chief Executive Officer says the new runway project is the largest aviation project in Australia and the planning behind the scenes is enormous.

 

“Brisbane’s new runway has been on Master Plan documents since the 1970s, so to be here where we can physically stand on taxiways and see the foundations of the runway being laid is a huge achievement for the thousands of people who have been involved with this project since its very early days,” said de Graaff.

 

This milestone is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for what is to come in the next few months. The broader taxiway systems and the physical runway will now be the focus, with other major tasks including approach lighting systems, and the massive job of landscaping the 300-hectare site are all in the pipeline ahead of a scheduled mid-2020 opening.

 

Another key element within the infrastructure of the project is the Dryandra Road Underpass. Jim Frith, McConnell Dowell Managing Director said the structure is considered an ‘engineering feat’ which will withstand the full weight of a A380 plane (approx. 710 tonnes).

 

“To put the complexity of this project into perspective, the underpass is being constructed five metres below sea level, meaning that the dewatering system is required to remove the equivalent of the volume of two Olympic swimming pools in a single, 24-hour period, while the physical structure is comprised of approximately 20,000m3 of concrete, and 4000 tonne of reinforced steel,” said Firth.

 

The entire site of the new runway is around 2.5 times the size of Brisbane CBD, covering 360 hectares with the new runway being 3.3km long and 60m wide.

 

When the second runway is completed in mid-2020, an additional 1.3 million visitors annually are expected to visit our great city.

 

Brisbane Airport is already ranked 4th in ‘Best Airports in the World (servicing 20-30 million passengers)’, and 16th in the ‘World’s Top 100 Airports’ list, up from 17/100 in 2016. 

 

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