Chris Frame heads to Queensland to find out how Australia’s Gold Coast Airport is building for the future with its new multi-million-dollar terminal
Developed during the 1930s as an emergency landing ground for the early-era propeller-driven aircraft plying their trade between Sydney and Brisbane, Australia’s Gold Coast Airport (OOL) endured something of a low-key start. It was originally known as Coolangatta Airport, after the neighbouring coastal settlement that was itself named after a vessel wrecked there in 1846 (the name loosely translates as ‘place of good view’ in Indigenous Australian).
The airfield, which lies around 65 miles south of Brisbane and straddles the border of Queensland and New South Wales, welcomed its first passenger flights in 1939. Regular connections were added after World War Two from small regional carriers such as Queensland Airlines and Butler Air Transport, and later from Ansett and Trans Australia Airlines.
Development was, however, relatively slow – the original grass strips gave way to paved runways and taxiways during the late 1950s but it wasn’t until 1981, with annual passenger traffic hitting 650,000, that the original terminal was replaced by the Eric Robinson Building.
Under the directi…
