Wellcamp

The suites bristle with business-friendly features that will make the perfect office combined with what appears to be the perfect bed.

To round that off, new menus and a turn-down service will be introduced in March.

However, it will not cost any more.

“We have reduced fares significantly since we introduced business class in 2011.

”When the Wagner family purchased a 1,200-hectare parcel of land just outside Toowoomba called Wellcamp Downs in 1994, an airport was hardly front and centre in their minds.

For Wagner Global Services – a family business concerned with concrete, cement and iron ore both at home and abroad – the $3 million purchase was more of a property play than anything else, given the large quarry on site and the potential for a business park development.

The business park would have the capability to house logistics, manufacturing and warehouse and distribution facilities, as well as processing plants and other related industries.

“Given the rich resources in the Darling Downs and Surat Basin, not to mention the area is home to some of Australia’s largest agriculture producers, the concept appeared to be on solid ground.

There was just one problem – transport links were extremely limited. Towoomba Airport down the road was not able to handle jet aircraft, with expansion very unlikely given the surrounding area.

Moreover, road links were poor given expansion of the Warrego Highway and Gore Highway was still some time away.

So the Wagners – four brothers Denis Joe, John and Neill – decided in April 2012 to build an airport on the site.

They took advantage of the timing of some council amalgamations tosubmit their development proposal to the Toowoomba Regional Council, meaning there was limited community consultation and no requirement for an environmental impact statement, much to the annoyance of some locals.

Nevertheless, council greenlighted the project in December 2012 and the Wagners promptly got to work four months later on the 300-hectare airport site.

And the results of almost 20 months work are a 2,870m Code E runway capable of taking Boeing 747 aircraft and 36,000m2 of aircraft parking on the apron.

The 8,500m2 passenger terminal has four departure gates and an initial capacity for 1. 4 million passengers annually. Stage two will increase floor space to about 14,500m2 and boost capacity to two million passengers. There are also 2,100 car parking spaces.

There is also provision for airlines to have their own VIP lounges, as well as retail and food and beverage outlets in a common user terminal designed by Guida Mosely Brown Architects – the same firm that drew up the new Canberra Airport facility.

John Wagner, the chairman of Wagner Global Services and himself a qualified pilot with a command instrument rating, landed the first aircraft at the airport on July 23, when he piloted his Beechcraft King Air twin turboprop on the newly laid Wellcamp runway built with some of the 10 million tonnes of rock from the onsite quarry.

He is excited about coming to the end of what has been a long road.

“It’s been 24 hours a day, seven days a week and we have lived and breathed it for 18 months and we are on the downhill run,” Wagner tells Australian Aviation on the sidelines of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA) national convention in early October. We are pretty bloody happy with our lot in life. ” Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport has International Air Transport Association (IATA) airport code WTB and was due to receive its Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) audit in late October.

The Wagners are handling all aspects of the terminal’s operations, such as ground handling, baggage services, check-in, security and fuel, in-house.

QantasLink was the first airline to commit to regular public transport flights to Wellcamp, with direct service to Sydney starting on November 17 using Bombardier Q400 aircraft.

At the official announcement on September 3, QantasLink chief executive John Gissing said the airline was delighted to be part of such an important milestone.

“As Australia’s largest regional airline, we understand the needs of regional Australia and we’re confident that the new route will stimulate tourism and business opportunities for the Toowoomba area,” Gissing says.

The arrival of QantasLink service to Wellcamp, as well as the oneworld alliance member’s onward connections around Australia and internationally from Sydney, spelled the end of the family-owned Skytrans flights between Sydney and the council-owned Toowoomba Airport.

Regional Express became the second passenger operator to commit to Wellcamp on October 15, when it won three new contracts as part of the Queensland government’s regulated air routes scheme.

Wagner is confident more airlines will follow QantasLink and Rex’s leads, given research commissioned by the company found Wellcamp had a catchment area of 344,000 people, the 11th largest in the country. The research did not include areas in Brisbane and Ipswich as part of the catchment area, Wagner says.

Wagner describes the total construction cost somewhere “south of $200 million”.

Once the upgrades to the Warrigo Highway are completed, travel times from Wellcamp to Brisbane would be cut to 80 minutes, while Ipswich would be 50 minutes away, Wagner says.

With everything in place for an official opening on November 1, some have expressed doubt about the viability of such an airport.

“The outbound traffic is too small, there is not much inbound to a place like Toowoomba and you might get a bit of fly-in/fly-out to the mines in central Queensland, but it won’t be enough in my view,” former Qantas chief economist Tony Webber told The Australian on October 11.

Wagner describes the total construction cost somewhere “south of $200 million” as a long-term investment to create a “multigenerational asset for the family”.

“I think we will actually be pleasantly surprised how quickly this piece of infrastructure will actually turn a profit,” Wagner says.

“Our view was that as a familywe had one opportunity to get it through the system relatively easily and relatively quickly and rather than build the thing now that would service us for the next 10 or 15 years we’d build something that would go on through the generations. ” He expects freight to be a hard slog, as it requires industry to re-think the movement of goods through major cities such as Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane.

“We currently sit right in the middle of the biggest agricultural producer in Queensland and the second biggest in Australia, and when you look at the statistics of chilled beef, live cattle, goats that go out of Sydney and Melbourne – and Brisbane to a lesser degree – they all come past our doorstep,” Wagner says.

“We think we can develop over time and change the mindset.

“It’s going to be tough to shift the freight from Sydney and Melbourne back up to Queensland and a regional centre, but we are up for it and we will give it a decent shot. ”With the airport in place, those that baulked at a business park without air or rail links are giving the site a second look.

“We wanted the business park to be a destination,” Wagner says.

“Now that we have achieved that we are getting a lot of international and national interest in our business park. ” Close to Wellcamp is the Army Aviation Training Centre at Oakey 17km to the north, and Toowoomba Airport about 12km to the east, not to mention about 41 unregistered aircraft landing areas nearby. CASA’s Office of Airspace Regulation has expressed some concerns about airspace issues once Wellcamp is fully operational.

“The airspace surrounding Toowoomba and Wellcamp can be complex and congested,” CASA’s preliminary airspace assessment of Wellcamp says.

Among the recommendations, CASA said airspace surrounding Wellcamp should remain as class G

The Wagners have forecast a little over 50 aircraft movements a day by 2019.

(or non-controlled) airspace, with the regulator to closely monitor traffic and passenger volumes.

CASA will conduct a review of the Oakey airspace changes and of Wellcamp’s operations 12 months after the airport opens.

The Wagners have forecast a little over 20 aircraft movements a day in 2015, which include charter and public transport flights, increasing to a little over 50 by 2019.

“The aerodrome will then enter the medium term and consolidation phase of the project,” the CASA report says.

“This will include ongoing capital works and infrastructure program such as upgrades to large aircraft parking areas. This would likely result in further increases in traffic. ” Air Commander Australia Air Vice-Marshal Gavin Turnbull said the Army Aviation centre at Oakey and RAAF Base Amberley had worked with Airservices and CASA to reduce the amount of military restricted airspace, particularly in the Darling Downs area.

“That’s so we didn’t stifle the development of the Wellcamp Airport as they develop in that part of the world,” Air Vice-Marshal Turnbull told the RAAA convention.

Local polling shows those living in Toowoomba are, for the most part, excited about having a new airport. A little over 27,000 turned out for Wellcamp’s open day on September 28, mingling with the likes of celebrity “ambassadors” such as Australian netballer Laura Geitz and rugby league’s Shane Webcke, as well as retired Wallaby Tim Horan and television presenter Natalie Gruzwelski, who were the event’s MCs.

Borghetti also talks about the enhanced premium economy on the Boeing 777s used on international routes.

“This product will be a ‘business lite’ rather than premium economy,” he says.

Also on the 777s Borghetti explains that the airline will add extra legroom to the first few rows of economy for an economy plus-styled product with further details to be announced soon.

That announcement will be coupled with others related to the airline’s economy cabin.

The product upgrades are part of the airline’s overarching strategy to become the country’s airline of choice.

“Our Virgin Vision to 2017 is to become Australia’s favourite airline group and the new products are central to this strategy as it will see Virgin Australia deliver the best premium travel experience in Australia.

” The suites will rollout in Virgin Australia’s A330 fleet in early 2015 with the first aircraft expected to be in service by March and the complete refit of the fleet to be finalised by August.

The rollout of the new business class product for the 777 fleet will commence from November 2015 and be complete by early 2016.

It was very clear from talking to Borghetti that the battle for hearts and backsides is moving from price to who has the softer bed.

But it was also clear that the economy passenger hasn’t been forgotten either with numerous announcements to follow.

But for now, and all too soon the lights of Sydney are visible and our eight hour magic carpet ride is over.

But the magic carpet for Australian travellers is about to get a whole lot better!