Airport CEO says Brisbane’s new runway will put it in the league of major aviation hubs

NEW boss Gert-Jan De Graaff is excited about the Brisbane airport’s potential to grow as a major hub for domestic and international travel.

Gert-Jan De Graaff, chief executive of Brisbane Airport Corporation.

AFTER leaving Queensland in 2012 to try and buy an airport in Brazil and manage a major terminal in the US, Gert-Jan De Graaff kept up with his beloved Brisbane Roar soccer team through a steady stream of DVDs arriving in his mailbox.

As a senior executive at the Brisbane Airport Corporation from 2007 to 2012, he had helped the company broker a successful sponsorship of the club, so being on the other side of the world was never going to weaken his passion for the team.

But during the six years he spent away from Brisbane, there was much more happening in the city than just Roar games to keep his eye on.

Top of the watch list was the progress of Brisbane Airport’s massive development program, which includes the showpiece $1.3 billion parallel runway due to open in 2020.

And when he saw that his former boss, Julieanne Alroe, whose husband had been bundling the DVDs of Roar games into the postbox, had resigned as chief executive, Mr De Graaff was ready to make what was eventually a successful pitch to take the helm at the country’s third biggest airport.

Former Brisbane airport CEO Julieanne Alroe.

Giving his first in-depth interview since he returned to BAC as chief executive on June 1, Mr De Graaff told The Courier-Mail he was excited about the airport’s potential to grow as a major hub for domestic and international travel.

“I came back for two reasons: for the job and for the opportunities,” he said. “I really wanted to have this job. I knew when I left six years ago that I would give it a go if there was the opportunity.”

Back then he had been in charge of strategic planning for major projects, which included planning for the runway that he could now be opening in just a few years.

“I was responsible for the planning and the approvals for the new runway, so I am very excited that if everything goes to plan I will be cutting the ribbon because it was only on paper at that time,” he said. The runway will double the airport’s capacity, putting it into the league of some the world’s biggest aviation hubs such as Singapore, and in position to handle decades of passenger growth.

“We will never complain again that airlines can’t come because we don’t have the runway capacity available. So this will set us up in the best possible way,” he said. He acknowledged some people, especially those under new flight paths, would not welcome more planes flying over the city but said his team would be upfront with the public as opening day approaches.

“It’s about communication, open and honest, we shouldn’t have secrets, you should just tell it how it is. You don’t want to be in a situation where people say you are hiding things,” he said. “When we talk about the runway here we are very simple. It will be much better for a lot of people but some of the people will not be happy from the beginning. That’s the way it is, we’re not going to hide it.”

After leaving Brisbane in 2012 he led a team trying to buy the concession for an airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

When his team came in second there, which he now considers a win due to the malaise in Brazil’s economy, he moved to JFK Airport in New York and oversaw Terminal 4 as it nearly doubled its capacity from 12 million to 22 million passengers in four years.

Passenger growth at Brisbane Airport is projected to grow from 23.2 million domestic and international passengers in 2017 to 50 million by 2035.

“At the back of the runway development we will have to develop new terminals and that’s going to happen in the next few years,” he said.

“We will present an ambitious plan for our terminal expansion but also our non-aeronautical activities are extremely important and very exciting.”

His first few months in the job have been a whirlwind of meetings with all levels of government and industry.

He has been impressed at the level of support across the board for what’s happening and how tightly the airport has become embedded into the southeast Queensland community.

While he’s fully invested in the ambitious growth schedule he does dash expectations that Brisbane could overtake Melbourne or Sydney to become the second largest airport in the country after the new runway opens.

“I think to be really honest, airlines are flying to markets and markets are largely driven by the size of the population,” he said.

“Yes, Brisbane will grow and that means that the airport will grow but I don’t think we will ever outgrow Melbourne as a city or Sydney as a city, that’s just not going to happen. What our most important challenge is that we’ve got to outgrow our population growth.”

While population growth is out of his control, Mr De Graaff is aware that Brisbane Airport consistently ranks as Australia’s best airport in customer and industry rankings.

He is focused on maintaining that ranking while moving even higher in global rankings by focusing on making the airport experience easier, quicker and more comfortable for passengers.

“We are the best airport in Australia and that’s not (something) that I make up, that’s objective,” he said.

“Skytrax ranked us as the highest in Australia and in the top 20 in the world. That means the next goal is top 15, that’s how we do things.

“We are continuing with all the good things we are doing and we will try to improve those things that we can improve because that’s always possible.”