Coronavirus: Gold Coast airport shuts down

With no commercial flights to cater for, the Gold Coast airport has temporarily shut its doors.

Australia’s tourist capital, the Gold Coast, has temporarily closed its airport due to the fact no commercial passenger flights are scheduled to come into the gateway for the foreseeable future.

Chief operating officer Marion Charlton made the shock announcement on Thursday night after the departure of the last Qantas and Virgin Australia flights.

Qantas and low-fare offshoot Jetstar were further reducing domestic services after reporting some flights had just one or two people on board.

Virgin Australia announced on Thursday it would only fly one route, Sydney-Melbourne, due to poor demand.

Ms Charlton said Gold Coast Airport had reduced its opening hours in recent weeks as flights contracted to just a few a week.

“The aviation industry is at the front line of this crisis, with passenger numbers falling steadily since the beginning of March,” she said.

“We will continue to work closely with our partners throughout this challenging time. Together, we will be ready to return to normal operations as soon as regular passenger flights are reinstated.”

Hours of operation for the runway and associated airfield operations remain unchanged for general aviation and other activities.

However the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has urged private pilots to “stay home” and not flout state border closures.

The check-in area of a deserted Gold Coast Airport in March. Picture: Supplied

At Melbourne Airport, Virgin Australia will share Qantas’s terminal from next week, and SkyBus services will be suspended.

Perth Airport CEO Kevin Brown said last year between April and September 5 million people passed through the terminals but this year the figure was likely to be close to zero.

“This is the biggest financial challenge Perth Airport has ever faced, but we are up to the challenge,” said Mr Brown.

“We are doing everything possible to steer our company through this storm and to keep our runways and terminals operating.”

He said failure was not an option for the airport, given Western Australia’s reliance of the fly-in, fly-out resources sector.

“But the reality is our passenger numbers have collapsed and as we collect aviation revenue on a per passenger basis, there has been a devastating flow on effect to our income,” Mr Brown said.

“We are looking at ways we can partially close our terminals during the day or night and consolidate flight services around FIFO demand.”

A Qantas Group spokesman said for the time being, the airline was still flying to every capital city and over 25 regional destinations, but the frequency of the flights was heavily reduced.

A Flight Radar 24 image showing Virgin's sole remaining service in operation on April 10. Picture: Supplied

“We remain in discussions with the federal government about operating a minimum domestic and regional network for essential travel during the crisis, realising this is one of many challenges they are dealing with at the moment,” said the spokesman.

“As the national carrier, we continue to operate flights for the resources sector within

Western Australia and Queensland and we’re also maintaining key freight links with

our fleet of freighter aircraft.”