Melbourne Airport
By the early 1960s, Melbourne's Essendon Airport facilities were insufficient to meet the increasing demand for air travel. Essendon's runways were too short to handle the newer jet airliners intended for international travel, and the terminals could not handle the increased passenger traffic.
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Melbourne Airport also known as Tullamarine Airport or the local colloquialism Tulla, is the primary airport serving the city of Melbourne and the second busiest in Australia. Located 23 kilometres from the city centre, adjacent to the suburb of Tullamarine, it was opened in 1970 to replace the nearby Essendon Airport. Melbourne Airport is the sole international airport of the four airports serving the Melbourne metropolitan area.
Melbourne Airport was privatised on 2 July 1997 when it was leased to the newly formed Australia Pacific Airports Corporation Limited. In July 1997, the Melbourne Airport website was launched, providing Australia's first real-time flight operations data over the internet. Since privatisation, further improvements to infrastructure have begun at the airport, including expansion of runways, car parks and terminals.
Melbourne Airport was originally called Tullamarine Airport, after the adjacent suburb of the same name. Tullamarine derives from the indigenous name Tullamareena. International has sporadically been used in the name of the airport. After privatisation, the name changed to Melbourne Airport, following the lead of most other major Australian airports. Locally, the airport is commonly referred to as Tullamarine or simply as Tulla to distinguish the airport from the other Melbourne airports: Avalon, Essendon and Moorabbin.
In 2003, Melbourne received the International Air Transport Association Eagle Award for service and two National Tourism Awards for tourism services. Skytrax, an airline consultancy company, classifies Melbourne as a four-star airport. The airport comprises of four terminals, one international terminal, two domestic terminals and one budget domestic terminal.
Melbourne Airport is set for the largest upgrade of its international terminal (T2) since the airport was built in the late 1960s.
Consisting of a number of individual projects, the expansions will make enormous changes to T2 – adding a total of 25,000m² of new space - and will roll out over the next 5 years at a combined total cost of over USD 330m.
Construction on the first stage of the T2 expansion is set to commence in November this year. The various projects are being undertaken at different times over the next 5 years to ensure passengers are not affected by the works.
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Melbourne Weather info
- Few clouds
- Temperature: 15 °C
- Wind: South, 9.3 km/h
- Pressure: 1017 hPa
- Rel. Humidity: 94 %
- Visibility: 10 km
5.0 km North-Northwest
Reported on:
Sat, 2012-02-11 14:00
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