Auckland Airport’s aircraft parking area, AKA the tennis courts, has closed as construction on the domestic terminal’s new aircraft pier expands onto the airfield, with some help from Rotorua’s Red Stag Timber.
AKL chief infrastructure officer Murray Burt says the move is an important step for the integrated terminal project.
The 240m pier is a major component of the new terminal, it adds, and part of the wider transformation of the airport’s terminals, and it will house 12 jet gates connecting travellers directly to their planes.
Highlighted features include Multiple Aircraft Ramp System gates that allow airlines to adjust how stands are used across the day, accommodating either a larger aircraft or two smaller aircraft depending on demand, and can service up to 12 aircraft at a time increasing airline seat capacity by around 26% at peak times.
“That’s functionality we just don’t have in our existing domestic terminal,” says Burt.
The new construction area can be seen alongside the runway, with aircraft operations relocated to an airfield area to the north of the international terminal.
. . . Timber
AKL says it is using cross-laminated timber sections of structural flooring rather than the more commonly used reinforced concrete, a lower-carbon approach to construction, supplied locally by Rotorua based family-owned business Red Stag.
Burt says this is one of several design decisions the airport made to reduce the embodied carbon of the building.
The domestic jet terminal is scheduled to open in 2029, bringing domestic jet and international travel together within a single integrated terminal.
