Maroochydore/Sunshine Coast Airport (MCY) temporarily closed its two-year-old runway earlier this week after airport workers found what was described as a sinkhole down one end of the runway. The busy regional airport closed its runway for several hours on Tuesday morning, exposing one of the vulnerabilities of single-runway airports.
Airport's only runway temporarily closes on Tuesday
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the airport closed the 2450m x 45m Runway 13/31 and issued a Notice to Airmen on Tuesday until later revoking that mid-morning. Whether it was a bona fide sinkhole, a more mundane pothole, or simply some wear and tear hasn't been ascertained. However, a sinkhole generally has significant geophysical implications and would take more than a few hours to patch up and paper over.
"Our operations team had given us a call and notified us that the runway was currently closed because of a sinkhole that had appeared down on the western end of the runway," one source told the ABC. Typically, early to mid-morning is one of MCY's quieter periods. While there are some flights departing for Australia's southern capitals and the odd jet drifting in, the tempo of arrivals and departures doesn't typically increase until later in the morning.
Sinkhole or simply some run-of-the-mill wear and tear?
An airport spokesperson referred to "pavement repairs" on the shoulder of one end of the runway. The runway only opened in 2020, replacing the old 18/36 runway. The new runway can handle planes as big as Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s and forms part of a large-scale, long-term redevelopment of MCY to better cater to increased aircraft and passenger traffic. The runway's construction cost AU$334 million (US$235 million) and is 500 meters longer than the runway it replaced.
Tuesday's closure led to calls to reopen the old runway, but Sunshine Coast Airport management confirmed that wouldn't be happening. The airport says parts of the old runway have been repurposed as a taxiway, and key safety standards to allow reopening have not been maintained. A local aircraft operator told the ABC the closure didn't just potentially cause a potential problem for the major airlines flying into MCY but also caused issues for smaller operators like themselves, who often operate charters and last-minute flights at short notice and require round-the-clock access to the runway.
Growth plans at Sunshine Coast Airport
Maroochydore/Sunshine Coast Airport is a 90-minute drive north of the busier Brisbane Airport (BNE). MCY is a handy alternative to Brisbane for the half a million locals living around the airport and the many holidaymakers who fly in. Australian startup airline Bonza is calling MCY home and setting up its headquarters there.
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It's business as usual for the airport on Friday morning, with Jetstar, Qantas, and Virgin Australia flights arriving and departing regularly. In July, Maroochydore/Sunshine Coast Airport regains its international status when Air New Zealand resumes flights from Auckland. The airport has big growth plans over the next couple of decades. What it doesn't want are unscheduled runway closures and reports of sinkholes. The airport says the runway's temporary closure on Tuesday did not impact any scheduled passenger services.