TRANSFORMATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL COMMENCES

May 09, 2012

Perth Airport Pty Ltd today announced that Broad Construction Services (WA) Pty Ltd is the successful contractor to undertake the expansion works of the international arrivals area at Terminal 1 (T1).

This project forms the first stage in a $300 million transformation of the current International Terminal.

Perth Airport Chief Executive Officer, Brad Geatches, said the expansion would ensure the airport was capable of facilitating Perth’s strong growth in international passenger numbers for years to come and would greatly enhance one of the State’s most important elements of infrastructure.

“We are very aware that, due to the growth in international passengers to over 3.3 million in 2011, more than 220,000 up on the prior year, the current international arrivals experience is not what it should be,” said Mr Geatches.

“We are committed to ensuring everyone who travels through Perth Airport has a high quality experience, so we are completely changing the arrivals journey and doubling the size of all processing areas.”

This first stageincludes significantly expanding the incoming duty free retail options and having a much larger Immigration area on the first level.  To minimise queuing and waiting times, passengers will then travel to the ground floor to a greatly expanded baggage reclaim hall and new Biosecurity (quarantine) area.

Construction will commence in May and is scheduled for completion in 2014, but passengers will start to see changes by the middle of 2013, when Immigration is moved to the first floor, creating more space on the ground floor.

As Perth Airport is a 24 hour a day operation, it was critical that a schedule of works was developed that would minimise disruption to passengers and tenants.

“Broad Construction Services (WA) Pty Ltd has extensive experience in managing complex works of this nature, and is also experienced with working in the International Terminal environment, having completed an upgrade of key facilities in 2011,” Mr Geatches said.

“They are also currently constructing the new $120 million Domestic Terminal, next to the International Terminal, which will service regional Western Australia and some interstate routes from early 2013, and this project is running on time and on budget.”

“Broad welcomes the opportunity to be working alongside Perth Airport again to deliver the first stage of the international expansion,” said Broad General Manager WA, Peter Moore.

“This contract award underlines Broad’s commitment to deliver service excellence to our clients and we look forward to working closely with the team to provide another quality, safe project,” he said.

Later this year Perth Airport will commence construction of a new domestic pier, to become home to Virgin Australia in 2014, and expansion of the international departures area , which will give the airport capacity to take the new wide-bodied aircraft, such as the Airbus A380.

“We are investing more than $750 million over three years to expand Perth Airport, and the transformation of the current International Terminal represents the first stage towards achieving our vision of having all commercial air services operating from one convenient location by 2020,” said Mr Geatches.