RETURNING members of the popular Hawks Nest and District Probus Club were treated to a fascinating review of the recent upgrade of Newcastle Airport at their first meeting of 2026, held on Friday 6 February.
Guest speaker Paul McFarlane, Head of Airport at Newcastle, walked them through the project, starting with a bit of history.
“Newcastle Airport was a RAAF base from 1942; commercial operations commenced there in 1948; and it was the epitome of a quiet, regional airport for a while,” Mr McFarlane explained..
“In our ‘Flight to 2036’, the new terminals have been designed and built to suit the airport’s needs, such as the 61 percent increase in floor space to 16,000m2.”
Mr McFarlane and his family know travel well, having started in Adelaide and moving far for work including stints on Cocos and Keeling Island Territories, where all food had to be flown in.
Newcastle is now a serious player in the domestic and international market.
It has regular flights to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane (11-13 per day), Canberra, Gold Coast, Narrabri, Lord Howe Island, Adelaide, and Perth – where lots of Hunter-based FIFO workers head – as well as seasonal flights to Cairns and Hobart.
Its Bali flights cross the threshold to being an international airport.
“Bali passengers take off all ecstatic, but return on a red eye as very different people,” Mr McFarlane said.
The recent airport upgrades often meant building in, around, and even on existing infrastructure, to maintain some level of operation.
Half of the Departures lounge was taken up.
“Every day was navigating a maze of construction, and you would not believe the mountains of bureaucracy, especially covering OHS, that filled much of our days.
“Unseen by the public, safety [is] paramount.
“It has been the biggest single expansion in 28 years of civil operations in Newcastle, and I am particularly pleased with the new escalators, which Newcastle airport never had before, and the new aerobridge.
“This means not all flights are the ‘traditional’ walk along the tarmac and up the stairs.”
Some impressive insight was given into the preparation before opening to the public, including an ORAT process (Operational Readiness, Activation & Transition).
It involved a massive, real-life trial run of everything airport users and customers would do, performed by an army of over 100 volunteers with bags packed, and fake boarding passes printed, for the Mass Passenger Exercise.
Mr McFarlane was the Head of Airport Security and Operational Resilience during the upgrade, a title now more succinct, and was pleased that the Opening Day went off better than could be expected.
“[There is] nothing more predictable than the unpredictability of the travelling public,” he said, “but we had users tell us how impressed they were with the modern look, new buildings, and that it was ‘the airport that Newcastle deserves.
“New routes often begin as popular seasonals, and in 2026, people can fly Newcastle to Singapore via a 90-minute stop in Bali, the same plane carries on – faster than transiting in Sydney.
“We are hoping for Pacific islands routes, New Zealand, more domestic routes and new domestic destinations, but it is the airlines that decide the routes, not the airport, and our business development team lobbies them hard to consider opening routes to Newcastle.
“Three new routes in 12 months in 2025, exceptional growth, and the airport is currently capable of accommodating aircraft that can fly direct to the USA or Middle East, but the market needs to be there for the airlines to consider opening the routes.”
By Thomas O’KEEFE
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