Perth Airport will start preliminary work within the next 12 months on a single consolidated domestic and international terminal at Airport Central, the centrepiece of a $3 billion deal signed with Qantas in May 2024 that also covers a new parallel runway and was planned to open in 2031.
Chief executive Jason Waters released the design renders on Monday but couldn’t say with certainty whether that budget and that opening date still stand, the ABC reported.
“There’s a long way to go on the project before we get to a stage where I would have a final view on time and cost, although at this stage my expectation is that we’re on target,” he told reporters.
For anyone on the tools in Perth, that’s the honest version: the drawings are out, the dirt moves inside a year, and the big money hasn’t been locked.
”Accessing trades and labour” is the CEO’s own worry
The airport isn’t tendering into an empty market. Perth Airport will be chasing crews at the same time as AUKUS-related infrastructure work in the Henderson defence precinct and the Westport container port, with its associated road and rail in Kwinana, all live on the same agenda.
Waters said the squeeze was already on his risk register.
“Accessing trades and labour and raw materials that we need … is going to be a challenge,” he said.
“Accessing trades and labour and raw materials that we need … is going to be a challenge,”
That’s three state-scale programs reaching into one metropolitan labour pool for the same formwork hands, steel fixers, crane crews, riggers and electricians. When demand stacks like that, the usual result isn’t that jobs stop. It’s that rates firm up, subbies get choosier about which head contractor they’ll sign with, and the program slips at the back end rather than the front.
Thousands on site, and the terminal never shuts
The airport has committed to trading right through the build.
“We’re going to be bringing thousands of construction workers onto the terminal site and that means there are going to delays and challenges for passengers but we’re going remain open 24/7 through the entire construction period,” Waters said.
Building beside a live airport is a different animal to a greenfield site. Access is controlled, deliveries get windowed, and work that would normally run straight through has to be staged around operating terminals and aprons. Crews on jobs like this spend time on inductions and escorted access that they’d never burn on an open block in the suburbs.
There’s nearer-term work in the package too. Two new car parks are part of the redevelopment, with one already finished and due to open later this year, and construction of a hotel is expected to start late next year.
So the order-book read is split. The terminal itself is a 2027-onwards proposition for most subcontractors, with the big trade sequence following structure and facade years out from today. The car park and hotel work is the bit that hits diaries sooner.
Eight kilometres apart, and decades of talk
Right now Perth Airport runs as two airports pretending to be one. Terminals 1 and 2 sit on the east side of the runways, Terminals 3 and 4 on the west, with an eight-kilometre drive or bus ride between them that has left more than a few passengers irate.
Qantas flies both domestic and international out of Terminals 3 and 4, and won’t move into the main terminal until after 2031.
Consolidation has been talked about for decades and knocked over more than once. Plans went out in 2019 for a $2.5 billion upgrade to the international terminal that would have made room for Qantas, then stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic when Qantas refused to pursue the deal amid commercial pressures.
In 2023, Premier Roger Cook accused Qantas of “dawdling”, saying it was holding the state back from becoming the “western gateway to Australia”.
On Monday the Premier was in a sunnier mood, saying the airport’s “global reach continues to soar to new heights”.
“We’re looking forward to the next chapter for Perth airport with a new world class precinct set to deliver a major boost to Western Australia’s economy,” Cook said.
The train almost nobody uses
The rail link was supposed to fix the ground access problem. It hasn’t yet.
Only about 4 per cent of people travelling to and from Perth Airport use the Airport Line that opened in 2022, chief executive Jason Waters said in October 2026.
The common gripe is the distance between the station and the Qantas terminals, leaving travellers to walk up to 20 minutes with luggage or wait for a shuttle bus. Waters said pulling everything into one precinct would give people a reason to take the train.
He also pointed east for the template. The $5.6 billion Western Sydney International Airport opened to passengers on the weekend.
“Western Sydney is a beautiful airport and in fact we’ve leant heavily on aspects of the design work that they did,” Waters said.
“The benefit of following them is though we can just make it a little bit better.”
What to watch
The first thing worth tracking is the early works packages, because they’re the ones that go to market inside 12 months and they’ll tell you which head contractors are running the job and how they’re carving up the trades. After that, the hotel start late next year.
The longer question is whether $3 billion and 2031 survive contact with Henderson and Westport. If WA’s three biggest construction programs end up bidding for the same crews at the same time, the airport’s program is the one with a published date attached to it, and that’s the one travellers and subbies will be measuring against.
Frequently asked questions
When will construction start on Perth Airport’s new terminal?
Preliminary work begins within 12 months, Perth Airport chief executive Jason Waters said, though the main terminal trade sequence doesn’t ramp up until 2027 onwards.
How much does the Perth Airport terminal project cost?
It’s part of a $3 billion deal signed with Qantas in May 2024 that also covers a new parallel runway, though Waters couldn’t confirm the budget still holds.
Why is competition for construction workers a concern?
The terminal build will compete for trades and labour against AUKUS-related work at Henderson and the Westport container port project, all drawing from the same WA labour pool at the same time.
Why do so few passengers use the Perth Airport train line?
Only about 4 per cent of travellers use the Airport Line that opened in 2022, largely because of the walk or shuttle bus needed to reach the Qantas terminals from the station.
Sourced from ABC News. Original article.
