Airport’s ‘cutting edge’ finish a runway to success
YEARS of planning, 59 long nights of construction and 40,000 work hours have gone into a project to help drive tourism to the Far North for decades to come.
Fulton Hogan work crews have laid the last skerrick of an 18,000-tonne asphalt stockpile to complete the Cairns Airport runway resurfacing project.
The final process in the $18m project was “grooving” – a procedure that cuts small grooves into the runway to improve friction for planes’ smooth tyres. It involved cutting 50,000 slots across the surface to provide channels for water to run-off, which is important for aircraft coming in to land at 200km/h. Crews worked on 150m stretches of the 3.2km runway each night and came in on time and under budget.
Cairns Airport CEO Norris Carter said the effort was essential to preserving the airport’s most important asset.
“This is an investment in a critical piece of our region’s infrastructure that will play a vital role in driving the recovery, growth and connectivity for Cairns and the Far North for decades to come,” he said.
“The runway is our primary asset and we’ve made the most of the reduction in flights over the last few months to complete this crucial infrastructure work to ensure we’re ready for the return.”
As a community contribution, new runway-grade asphalt from the on-site plant was also used to resurface the Cairns BMX Club access road.
The 11,000 tonnes of old asphalt will be recycled to surface internal levee roads around Cairns Airport.
The project and the rest of a $70m upgrade to the domestic terminal have both been funded entirely by North Queensland Airports and its retail partners.