|
|
|
|
|
Melbourne Airport - This is about the Australian airport. See Melbourne International Airport for the airport of Melbourne, Florida.
Melbourne Airport is located in the suburb of Tullamarine, Victoria, Australia, near Melbourne. It is a hub for Qantas and has the IATA Airport Code MEL. The airport was built to replace the outdated Essendon Airport, which did not have runways long enough to accommodate large aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and McDonnell Douglas DC-10 which began to appear in the late 1960s. It opened on 1 July 1970. Locals often refer to the airport as Tullamarine Airport or simply 'Tulla' after its location. Melbourne Airport has three terminals. The international terminal has 14 gates. The two domestic terminals, one exclusively used by Qantas and its Jetstar subsidiary, and the multi-user South Terminal primarily used by Virgin Blue have 46 gates between them. In the 2003/4 financial year 19 million passengers used Melbourne Airport and there were 165,000 aircraft movements. Recent works have been undertaken to prepare the airport for the late 2006 arrival of the double deck Airbus A380 which has been purchased by a number of airlines using the airport. This includes construction of airbridges with the ability to board both decks simultaneously to reduce turn around times. Melbourne Airport has two intersecting runways. The north/south runway 16/34 is 3657 metres long, the east/west 9/27 is 2286 metres long. A number of Australian airports were privatised in 1997 including Melbourne Airport which was leased to Australia Pacific Airports Corporation, a company largely owned by a group of infrastructure investment funds, for a period of fifty years. Significant refurbishment of the rather dated terminals has been undertaken since privatisation and the airport now boasts a wide array of shops and food outlets. Recently the Victorian government investigated the construction of a heavy rail link to Melbourne Airport. Two options were considered, one branching off the Broadmeadows suburban line and another branching off the Albion goods line at two possible locations with the latter being the preferred option. Passenger numbers were not considered sufficient to justify the project and construction was deferred for at least ten years. The existing Skybus service was improved to compensate and remains the only available public transport to the airport. Airlines using Melbourne Airport External link See also
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|