Green Fields

Sydney’s second airport has been the subject of the longest and most controversial debate in Australian aviation history. Now, it is being built at Badgerys Creek with a scheduled opening in 2025. Will the longawaited facility – its initial phase will cost some $2.4 billion – be a winner? Other cities around the globe have seen mixed outcomes when they’ve opted to operate two airports.

In airport and airline circles it is known as the ultimate white elephant. Montreal’s second airport, Mirabel International, cost around $500 million to build in 1975, some $2. 2 billion in today’s money. But if they thought it would be a case of “build it and they will come”, they were dead wrong.

Originally intended to replace the then Dorval Airport – now re-named Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport – Mirabel’s distant location from the city and a lack of adequate transport links made it more than unpopular with travellers and airlines alike. They stayed away in droves. Today, Mirabel is essentially a cargo airport as well as being the manufacturing base for Bombardier Aerospace, where final assembly of regional jets (CRJ700, CRJ900 and CRJ1000) and the Bombardier CSeries is conducted. The former passenger terminal apron is now a racecourse.