Carly Wieland - Waipa District Council

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5.7 Essentially, without the runway built, Gold Coast Airport could not
seriously market itself to target airlines. Airlines needed to be
confident that OOL would have the infrastructure in place before they
would commit to commencing new flights based on the large
investment and lead-in time for new routes. Lead-in time refers to not
only airline ticket sales, but the marketing and development with the
travel distribution networks which sell a great percentage of seats on
behalf of the airline in Asian markets. It was considered too great a
risk on the airlines part to commit to a new route without the runway
complete, as the embarassment and cost of cancelling pre-sold
holiday packages was too great.
Sydney
Mel bour ne
Br i sbane
Per th
Adel ai de
Cair ns
Gol d Coast
Canber r a
Dar wi n
Hobar t
Townsville
Alice Springs
Runway Lengths For Top 12 Australian Airports
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
5.8 Thus in order to plan for maximum future potential of the OOL, an
approval was sought and granted by the Federal government in
November 2004 to extend the Gold Coast Airport runway from 2,042m
to 2,500m. This extension would enable existing aircraft types using
the airport and larger aircraft (up to B777/A330 and the B787 aircraft
types) to operate to North Asia non-stop. However, before the board
of GCAPL approved the construction of this runway and necessary
terminal developments to facilitate long-term international and
domestic traffic, a detailed feasibility study was commissioned to
analyse the true international demand potential for the Gold Coast.
CAPA Consulting was chosen as the most industry relevant