Gold Coast Airport: One thing they got very right

Gold Coast Airport has done one thing that means it stands almost alone among airports around the world, writes Keith Woods.

Sweeping views of the hinterland. Images of crashing waves and brightly coloured surfboards.

An interesting welcome awaits the first passengers who alight at the Gold Coast Airport’s newly expanded terminal later this year.

Your columnist was impressed when he was fortunate enough to tour the new facility a couple of weeks ago.

It will provide not just a wonderful first impression for wide-eyed tourists, but a welcome sense of home for returning locals.

We will be lucky to have it, luckier than many realise.

This column has, by dint of circumstance, needed to travel back and forth to Europe in recent weeks, spending more time in airports and their infernal queues than remotely healthy. It’s not an experience to be recommended.

Travellers wait in a long queue to pass through the security check at Heathrow on June 1. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Heathrow is not an easy place to describe to any who have not recently visited. But fair to say if Dante was alive today, he might want to revise his famous Inferno. There are more tormented lost souls in that small patch of London than all his nine circles of hell.

In a video viewed more than 2.2 million times, Toronto Airport was described as “the biggest disgrace known to man”.

“I live at Toronto Pearson International Airport,” former ice hockey star Ryan Whitney wrote after many hours of misery. “The worst place on earth. I smell so bad.”

I live at Toronto Pearson International airport. The worst place on earth. I smell so bad. pic.twitter.com/PfdnHcO7Ad

— Ryan Whitney (@ryanwhitney6) June 6, 2022

On one brutal Sunday morning at Dublin Airport last month, more than 1000 people missed their flights because lines at security were so long.

Closer to home travellers have spent days attempting to escape Queenstown, while queues at Sydney on Monday spilled out the domestic terminal door and into the car park.

Worldwide, air travellers have begun to accept that arriving at their destination at the time originally scheduled should be celebrated as a rare and special achievement. Few are so uncouth as to greedily expect their luggage to make it with them.

But at the Gold Coast tourists and locals alike can expect to arrive and depart with relative ease.

The root cause of problems at airports big and small across the globe is that they mothballed facilities and let thousands of staff go at the height of the Covid pandemic, and have been unable to ramp up again as demand has surged back. They had no plan for a future beyond Covid.

GALLERY: INSIDE NEW GOLD COAST AIRPORT TERMINAL

Despite its eerie emptiness through 2020 and 2021, management at Gold Coast Airport took a different course. Almost uniquely, they spent the last two years preparing for traffic to not only return to pre-Covid highs, but exceed them.

In the bleakest days, there were surely times when there seemed little point in continuing with the expensive terminal build. But the good people at our airport not only persisted, but cut no corners in doing so.

Recently departed Queensland Airports Limited CEO Chris Mills told me they were determined to deliver a facility the city could be proud of, the airport the Gold Coast “deserves”.

“It’s the first impression people get when they arrive and the last thing they see before they take off,” Mr Mills emphasised.

Former Queensland Airports Limited CEO Chris Mills tries out a new air bridge at the terminal expansion. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

From what I have seen, they have delivered on that promise. The Gold Coast can expect to reap the benefits for years to come.

It’s a remarkable good news story. While most airports around the world are a source of tales of misery and despair, Gold Coast Airport is not only coping well with the return of travel, but about to dramatically up its game.

The news is worth spreading to friends and family interstate. They may, perhaps, want to think again about taking trips overseas, and pencil in a Gold Coast holiday instead.

This columnist was very grateful to touch down in Queensland after his recent travels. One suspects that’s a feeling that will be magnified for anyone arriving at Gold Coast’s Airport’s wonderful new terminal.

Originally published as Gold Coast Airport: One thing they got very right