Melbourne airport’s owners have revealed a third runway will be used mostly for arrivals with planes coming in over Broadmeadows and descending over Gladstone Park before landing. Photo: Craig Abraham
Jason Murphy and Jessica Gardner
A third runway planned for Melbourne airport will give it the highest capacity in the country but put more homes under the flight path.
Australia Pacific Airports Corp chief executive Chris Woodruff said the growth of the airport would help drive the Victorian economy.
“Melbourne Airport is about to embark on the most significant period of growth since it opened in 1970,” he said.
Melbourne’s plan for a smooth airport expansion comes as the political fight over a second Sydney airport remains bitter and partisan.
Mr Woodruff has previously boasted of “taking the fight to Sydney and outgrowing them”.
The orientation of the new runway was revealed in a new draft master plan released on Monday.
The runway will run parallel to an existing east-west runway and will be located about two kilometres away, enabling both runways to operate in tandem.
The proposed runway is closer to the terminal, meaning there would be fewer taxiing delays and the number of “live” runway crossings would be reduced, the plan revealed.
It is also expected to reduce noise in the south but increase noise to the airport’s east.
Homes in Tullamarine, Gladstone Park and Broadmeadows are expected to be affected.
Melbourne airport is around 23 kilometres from the city centre. It is surrounded by rural and undeveloped areas on three side with the nearest homes being three kilometres to the south-east.
After the upgrade, Melbourne airport will be able to support 380,000 aircraft movements a year, or up to 88 movements an hour.
Qantas Airways chief executive Alan Joyce seemed to send a message to Sydney in his praise for Melbourne’s development.
“I think it’s great that Melbourne is ahead of the curve in terms of developing its infrastructure . . . the infrastructure across the country needs to keep pace with economic development and Melbourne is one of the airports that is ahead of that curve,” he said on Monday.
Sydney airport, which is eight kilometres south of the city centre, supports 280,910 flights a year, according to an airport fact sheet. Its capacity is capped by legislation at 80 movements per hour.
Passenger movements at Sydney are predicted to grow at 3.6 per cent per year for the next 20 years on average, below the recent growth rate. Melbourne airport is expected to grow slightly faster at 3.9 per cent per year.
The draft master plan for the third Melbourne runway stated a new rail link to the airport is “likely to be outside the five-year focus of this master plan” and suggesed bus services be improved. The state Coalition government promised a study into a rail link to Melbourne airport prior to its election in 2011.
The draft plan is open for public comment for 60 business days.
No comments:
Post a Comment