A “Field of Dreams ‘’ airport built by four wealthy brothers in a rural field has reached a new milestone after the Australian government recognised it as a regional international gateway.
Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport has drawn a number of parallels with the popular Kevin Costner film about an Iowa corn farmer who built a baseball diamond in his field and the film’s build-it-they-will-come theme.
Capable of handling a Boeing 747, It is the kind of airport usually funded by governments and which takes years to build.
Yet Wellcamp, the first major privately-funded new major regular public transport airport to be built in Australia for half a century, took 19 months to build near the regional Queensland town of Toowoomba.
This was partly due to the ability of the Wagner family to sidestep some environmental requirements by building it on their own fields and partly because they were able to use their own construction company and expertise..
The brothers spent $A200 million on the initial development with most of the resources to build the airport came from within the site, allowing crews to work 24/7, using big off-road trucks to shift about a million tonnes of rock a month. There were also able to utilise three quarries on the site as well as a concrete plant and an asphalt plant.
The result was an airport boasting a 2.8km runway that can take a fully loaded B747 freighter and other aircraft such as Antonovs.
Building up flights has been a steadily unfolding process and the airport currently has 68 domestic flights a week, moving to 74 on November 28.
Airport developer John Wagner expects more services to be added early next year and said the airport was exceeding expectations.
“It never goes as good as what you’d want to do,’’ he told AirlineRatings. “But it’s certainly living up to and exceeding our expectations. From a financial point of view, I’m very happy with it.’’
As well as domestic and nd ad hoc charters, the airport has hosted an international charter flight to Shanghai, China using a Qantas Airbus A330 and has attracted a regular international freight service from Cathay Pacific. The weekly Sydney-Melbourne-Wellcamp-Hong Kong routing using a Boeing 747-8F is due to start on November 22.
The airport’s classification as a regional gateway under Australia’s air services agreement means it can pitch for more international services.
Toowoomba is at the centre of a major agricultural district and is Australia’s second biggest inland city. It has a passenger catchment in its own right of 340,000 people but is also less than two hours’ drive from the western suburbs of Queensland’s capital, Brisbane.
“International airlines will be able to service the airport without any restrictions applying to the number of frequencies that can be operated between the airport and overseas destinations,’’ Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester said.
Wagner said the announcement provided valuable certainty for airlines and the airport in building international services for the region.
“It’s a huge plus,’’ he said. “It just takes out a lot of uncertainty for the airlines. What it means is that the airport’s got official government sanction to be an international gateway and we want to try and capitalise on that over the next number of years.’
The airport developer said he was hopeful the weekly freighter service would be able to increase in frequency next year. He confirmed he was in discussions with international carriers about the “first prize’’ of regular passenger services .
“We’ve got a few things bubbling along,’’ he said. “We’ve just got to work hard to broaden our customer base. The domestic services are going really well. It's early days, but these things are a long-term investment and you’ve got to take long-term view of the world.’’
