Following three months of essential runway maintenance works, Brisbane Airport resumed normal operations on 29 September.
The work involved replacing 18 cracked slabs at the end of the runway which were installed in the 1980s, with Gert-Jan de Graaff, Brisbane Airport CEO, describing the work as “necessary” to keep the runway safe. He also commended the team for completing the work on schedule and within the original timeframe, as he explained they had to deal with inclement weather.
-“The team’s efforts to complete the line marking while a low-pressure system delivered rain and strong winds was impressive,” he said. The crew used heaters to dry the tarmac in time for its reopening on Sunday.
While the work, which meant the runway was shortened for aircraft use from 3.5km to 2.7km, was carried out wide-bodied and international flights were required to use the new parallel runway.
To remove and replace the 18 cracked slabs at the end of the runway, the work entailed the removal of 1,350sqm of concrete slabs on the taxiway and threshold, the placement of 570m3 of concrete, as well as 600 tonnes of asphalt and the use of 1,000 sandbags to mark the shortened runway. A bespoke concrete mix had to be on the ground within 60 minutes of being mixed offsite, while a vacuum attachment was used to life the concrete slabs weighing hundreds of kilogrammes out of the ground.
The work is part of a AUD5 billion Future BEN programme, which also includes the transformation of the domestic terminal, international terminal, planning terminal 3 and retail, commercial and industrial projects.
