Melbourne Airport
Encyclopedia : M : ME : MEL : Melbourne Airport
- This airport is located in Australia. See also Melbourne International Airport in the United States and Melbourne Airport (Ontario) in Canada.
|- !colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Runways |- !bgcolor="lightgrey" rowspan="2"|Direction !bgcolor="lightgrey" colspan="2"|Length !bgcolor="lightgrey" rowspan="2"|Surface |- !bgcolor="lightgrey"|ft !bgcolor="lightgrey"|m |- !align="left" valign="top"|09/27 |valign="top" align="right"|7,500 |valign="top" align="right"|2,286 |valign="top"|Asphalt |- !align="left" valign="top"|16/34 |valign="top" align="right"|11,998 |valign="top" align="right"|3,657 |valign="top"|Asphalt
Melbourne Airport is located to the north of the city, adjacent to the suburb of Tullamarine, Victoria, Australia. The airport has its own postcode(3045).
The airport was built to replace the nearby, outdated Essendon Airport, which did not have runways or terminals able to accommodate large aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and McDonnell Douglas DC-10 which began to appear in the late 1960s. It opened on 1 July 1970. Locals often refer to the airport as Tullamarine Airport or simply 'Tulla' after its location.
Melbourne Airport has three terminals. The international terminal (T2) has 16 gates (Gates 12-16 are 'standoff' (or non-aerobrige) gates). The two domestic terminals, T1 used exclusively by Qantas and its Jetstar subsidiary, and the multi-user T3 primarily used by Virgin Blue have 46 gates between them. In the 2004-05 financial year nearly 21 million passengers used Melbourne Airport. There were 180,500 aircraft movements, the vast majority (151,200) being domestic passenger services. Melbourne Airport is Australia's second busiest airport after Kingsford Smith International Airport in Sydney. The airport is curfew free and operates 24 hours a day, although in practice there are few aircraft movements between midnight and 4 a.m, except freight aircraft.
Melbourne Airport has two intersecting runways. The north/south runway (designated 16/34) is 3,657 metres long, the east/west (9/27) is 2,286 metres long.
Recent works have been undertaken to prepare the airport for the late 2006 arrival of the double deck Airbus A380 which has been purchased by a number of airlines using the airport including Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Malaysia Airlines. Improvements include construction of aerobridges (Gates 9 and 11) with the ability to board both decks simultaneously to reduce turn around times and widening of the north/south runway by 15 metres.
A number of Australian airports were privatised in 1997 including Melbourne Airport which was leased to the Australia Pacific Airports Corporation, a company largely owned by a group of infrastructure investment funds, for a period of fifty years. Significant refurbishment of the rather dated terminals has been undertaken since privatisation and the airport now boasts a wide array of shops and food outlets.
In 2001 the state government investigated the construction of a heavy rail link to Melbourne Airport. Two options were considered, one branching off the Broadmeadows suburban line to the east, and another branching off the Albion goods line, which passes close to the airport's boundary to the south, with the latter being the preferred option. Market research found that most passengers preferred travel by taxi or private car to the airport. Poor patronage of similar links in Sydney and Brisbane also cast doubt on the viability of the project². This lead to the project being deferred for at least ten years. The existing Skybus service was improved to compensate and remains the only available public transport service to the airport direct from the Melbourne CBD, the trip taking approximately 20 minutes from Southern Cross Station.
Airlines using Melbourne Airport
The following airlines operate services to Melbourne Airport in their own right. Many others operate services as code-shares.
- Air China (Beijing, Shanghai-Pudong)
- Air Mauritius (Mauritius)
- Air New Zealand (Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington)
- Air Pacific (Nadi)
- Austrian Airlines (Singapore, Vienna)
- Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong)
- China Eastern Airlines (Shanghai-Pudong)
- China Southern Airlines (Guangzhou)
- Emirates (Auckland, Dubai, Singapore)
- Garuda Indonesia (Denpasar/Bali)
- Jetstar Airways (Cairns, Christchurch, Gold Coast, Hamilton Island, Hobart, Lauceston, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle)
- Malaysia Airlines (Kuala Lumpur)
- O'Connor Airlines (Mount Gambier)
- Pacific Blue (Christchurch, Nadi)
- Philippine Airlines (Manila)
- Qantas (Adelaide, Alice Springs, Auckland, Bangkok, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Christchurch, Hobart, Hong Kong, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Perth, Shanghai-Pudong, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo-Narita, Wellington)
- * QantasLink (Burnie, Devonport, Mt Hotham, Newcastle, Mildura, Kangaroo Island)
- Regional Express (Albury, King Island, Merimbula, Mt. Gambier, Wagga Wagga)
- Singapore Airlines (Singapore)
- Thai Airways International (Bangkok)
- United Airlines (Los Angeles)
- Vietnam Airlines (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City)
- Virgin Blue (Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Gold Coast, Hobart, Launceston, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Perth, Sydney)
See also
Notes
- Melbourne Airport (2005). ["Record passenger numbers for Melbourne Airport"]
- Minister of Transport (2002). ["Melbourne Airport Rail Link not viable now."]
External links
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