Runway Construction

Runway site preparation

Before any works commenced, Brisbane’s new runway site was low lying with very poor strength soils. Some engineers likened the consistency to toothpaste. Between 2012 and 2017, Brisbane Airport transformed the site by:

• Raising the ground level by 3m to be free from flood and climate change impacts
• Improving the strength of the ground to make it suitable for construction of the new runway (now called western runway)

This challenging endeavour required:

• Placing 11 million cubic metres of sand at varying heights across the site
• Installing 330,000 vertical wick drains into the underlying soils to depths of up to 35 metres
• Leaving the site to settle for three years, to allow the weight of the sand coupled with the straw like action of the wick drains to squeeze the water out of the soil
• Monitoring the progress of settlement performance to check when the site has reached a suitable level of settlement to commence building the runway and taxiways.

In 2017, as predicted, the site achieved the necessary ground improvements and moved into the final construction stage for the project. 

Airfield design

From 2014 – 2016, Brisbane Airport was able to finalise the airfield design and layout of Brisbane’s new runway (now called western runway). This stage took place whilst the sand was settling and includes the detailed geometry and layout of the site, including pavements, taxiways, lighting, drainage, landscaping and utilities.

The design team worked closely with Airservices Australia, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and selected airlines to plan the airfield layout, ensuring the new runway is as efficient as possible. 

Runway construction

Brisbane’s new runway was not just a runway project. It included doubling Brisbane Airport's airfield and all associated facilities.  

Construction included:

1. A new runway 3.3kms long, 60m wide, topped with asphalt
2. 12km of taxiways, topped with concrete
3. Many kilometres of airside roads, drains, airfield lighting and signage
4. Navigation aids, including an Instrument Landing System (ILS) and high intensity approach lighting system (HIAL) at both ends of the runway
5. 300ha of landscaping to cover all non-paved areas of the airfield and
6. A four-lane underpass structure which links the Domestic Terminal precinct and the airport's northern facilities  

Work to prepare the site began in 2012. The final major stages of construction to build the runway, taxiways and airfield got underway in 2017 as the ground transformation works had performed according to plan. Construction was completed in mid-2020, ready for the runway to official open on Sunday 12 July 2020.

For more details about the various elements of construction, including pavements, lighting, landscaping and the Dryandra Road underpass, visit BNE's Youtube channel.