Eagle Farm Airport

Brisbane's first airport was Eagle Farm Airport that was built in 1925 on former agricultural land in the suburb of Eagle Farm located 6 km (3.7 mi) north-east of the Brisbane central business district, 5 km (3.1 mi) south-west of Brisbane Airport's Domestic Terminal. Although Qantas started operations there in 1926, most of the flights in Brisbane operated at the Archerfield Airport, which contained a superior landing surface. While in operation, Charles Kingsford Smith landed at Eagle Farm on 9 June 1928, after completing the first trans-pacific flight in his Fokker F.VII, the Southern Cross. There is now a museum containing the original aircraft, along with a memorial located within the Brisbane Airport precinct.

During World War II, Brisbane was the headquarters of the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in the South West Pacific Area, General Douglas MacArthur. The United States Armed Forces upgraded the airfield (Eagle Farm Airport) to cater for military flights, bringing it to such a standard that it became the main civilian airport for the city.

By the 1960s, the facilities at Eagle Farm Airport were inadequate for a city of Brisbane's size and anticipated growth. Many long-haul international services to Asia were required to make an en route stop (e.g., at Darwin), disadvantaging the city to lure prospective carriers and business opportunities.

Some of the infrastructure at Eagle Farm Airport was incorporated into today's Brisbane Airport. For example, the north-east end of the main runway (04/22) survives as taxiway Papa of the present airport, while the Eagle Farm international terminal is now the Brisbane Airport cargo terminal. The final flight from the Eagle Farm Airport departed on 20 March 1988.

1988 opening

The Federal Government announced the construction of Brisbane Airport to be built immediately north east of Eagle Farm Airport. Construction commenced in June 1980. The new airport was built by Barclay Brothers at a cost of $400 million and opened on 19 March 1988, with a new domestic terminal and two runways. The opening was hosted by Prime Minister Bob Hawke. The new airport was built on the former Brisbane residential suburb of Cribb Island that was demolished to make way for the airport. Large amounts of sand were pumped from nearby Moreton Bay to raise the swamp land above the tidal range.

The 1988 facilities included: a domestic terminal; state-of-the-art maintenance facilities; freight apron at the existing passenger terminal; two runways (3,500 m (11,483 ft) and 1,700 m (5,577 ft)) with parallel taxiway systems (cater for Code F+ aircraft); access roads; parking facilities and a 75 m (246 ft) tall air traffic control tower.

In September 1995, the international terminal was inaugurated by Prime Minister Paul Keating, and it has been expanded since that time.

Privatisation

In 1997, as part of the privatisation of numerous Australian airports, the airport was acquired for $1.4 billion from the Federal Airports Corporation by Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) under a 50-year lease (with an option to renew for a further 49 years). The original BAC shareholders were Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Brisbane City Council, Commonwealth Bank and Port of Brisbane Corporation. Since that time, BAC has assumed ultimate responsibility for the operations of Brisbane Airport including all airport infrastructure investment with no government funding. As at January 2024, the major shareholders were Queensland Investment Corporation (29%), Igneo Infrastructure Partners (27%), Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (20%) and IFM Investors (20%). Brisbane Airport is categorised as a Leased Federal Airport.

New parallel runway

On 18 September 2007, the federal government granted approval for the construction of a new parallel runway. The proposed $1.3 billion, 3,300 m (10,800 ft) runway was expected to take approximately eight years to construct and was constructed on swamp land 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) west of the existing terminal area and parallel to the existing main runway. The long construction period was due to the settling period of the 13,000,000 cubic metres (459,090,667 cu ft) of sand fill dredged from Moreton Bay. In early December 2014 the delivery of 11,000,000 cubic metres (388,461,334 cu ft) of sand to the site was completed. In 2019, asphalting of the second runway had begun and was completed by late 2019, while mid February 2020 saw the start of the line-marking of the runway.

On 30 March 2020, runway 14/32 was decommissioned early as part of Brisbane's new runway 'Operational Readiness & Testing' phase so that the newly decommissioned cross runway could be used for aircraft parking.

In mid-2020, construction of a new runway was completed. Its first flight was operated by Virgin Australia, flight VA781 to Cairns, on 12 July 2020.