Sydney’s international terminal upgrade

Once departing travellers have passed through the expanded and consolidated border control and security check area, they are funnelled through what airport management have called “the largest duty free store in the southern hemisphere”, before entering a large oval shaped departures ‘forum’ filled with natural light through a louvered ceiling. Qantas’s airline lounges are on the mezzanine along the left edge of the hall, while high-end retail fashion and jewellery stores flank the sides at ground level.

In the middle of the forum are a number of bars, coffee shops and food and beverage outlets, and a large seating area with plush chairs and lounges. At the southern end is the walkway through to Pier C and the southern gates commonly used by Star Alliance airlines and Emirates, while access to the eastern and northern gates commonly used by Qantas and other Oneworld alliance airlines is from the other end of the hall.

“Our aim is to provide travellers with an enhanced travel experience,” Sydney Airport CEO, Russell Balding said at the opening. “It is a strategically important investment that will leave visitors with a positive and lasting impression of Sydney. Sydney is Australia’s most popular tourist destination and last year more than 10.6 million international passengers arrived and departed through Sydney Airport.”

The new works have expended the departures area by 7300 square metres and cost about $700 million. The refurbishment is part of a larger $1.7 billion project which will also see the arrivals area below the new departures area upgraded with additional luggage carousels and arrival border control positions, with one new carousel already added. “We’re looking at the downstairs arrival area now as another discreet project,” Mr Balding told Australian Aviation. “There are two issues – we’ve put in an extra arrivals carousel already to ensure we continue to be able to accommodate A380 arrivals, and we’re now taking a step back and having a look as a discreet project at the arrivals area. We’re also looking at Pier C as well…from a whole range of things like we did with Pier B, having a look at what the passengers require and the facilities there, but it’s one step at a time.”

The works are part of Sydney Airport’s greater master plan which will see the airport capable of accommodating up to 79 million passengers per year by 2030. Other possible but as-yet undefined elements of that plan include further expansion of the international terminal to the north into the area currently occupied by the cargo terminal, an expansion of the domestic T2 terminal (Virgin Blue, Jetstar, Rex etc) with possibly a third pier to be added to the east of the existing piers, the relocation of the eastern general aviation and corporate terminals and MROs to vacant land south of General Holmes Drive between the two north-south runways, and the possible relocation of the Qantas Jet base to the former general aviation area to make way for an expansion of the T3 Qantas domestic terminal and new cargo terminal area.

When asked when expansion of the domestic terminals may occur, a non-committal Balding told us, “We’ve just completed a major upgrade of (T2) itself, but we’ll be looking at the actual capacity needs of the terminal on a needs basis, and that’s identified in the master plan. What we need to do is to put in place progressive steps to get to 2029 and the expansion of T2 is part of that. That need has not been expressed as yet, but we’ll be doing some improvements to T2 which will increase the capacity, but the actual full situation as outlined in the master plan is a number of years away yet.”

With current passenger numbers at Sydney estimated to currently be about 33 million a year, one third that of the projected 2030 number, and international terminal aircraft gates already often at capacity during the morning peak between 7.00am and 9.00am, it will be interesting to see whether further expansion of the international terminal takes precedence. Despite the proliferation of higher capacity airliners like the A380 and 777-300ER, a more than doubling of passenger numbers will only be accomplished by either accommodating many more aircraft movements. Therefore, airport management will have to battle the perception that more aircraft movements will mean more aircraft noise for surrounding communities

“We all accept that, yes, there’ll be more aircraft movements,” Balding said. “But aircraft today are becoming quieter – new age aircraft are a lot quieter, so when you look at the actual noise footprints and profiles, you’ll see they’re actually contracted from where we were even five years ago.”