All of our airlines in Australia right now are facing events I never even thought I’d see in my lifetime and it’s pretty crazy to think about. So far, Virgin, Qantas and Jetstar have announced that they will be severely dropping routes which means a lot of aircraft will be sitting not being utilised. Due to this, the decision was made by the carriers that the appropriate choice would be to ground aircraft.
Grounding of aircraft is a HUGE decision to make and definitely isn’t going to be a cheap one.
Very Soon, Brisbane Airport Could Be Home For Up To 101 Grounded Aircraft
Just about all of Qantas’ A330’s will be grounded
Virgin, Qantas and Jetstar will ground service, but where will they park the aircraft?
Now if the case was only for a few aircraft, that wouldn’t be an issue but in this time, we’re talking about hundreds of aircraft, from Dash 8’s to A380’s – all of them need a temporary home. Sydney and Melbourne would be the logical place as that is where the majority of the aircraft are sitting but there’s one problem with that, space isn’t quite sufficient.
Sydney Airport is already constrained on space as it is and this is with normal operations happening. There’s just not enough space required so airlines are looking for other perfect fits.
Here’s where Brisbane comes in. Brisbane Airport itself is very long which means there’s a substantial amount of space that can be used and aircraft can be placed on aprons, taxiways or alongside the terminals which aren’t being utilised near as much compared to a few weeks ago.
View From The Brisbane Tower
I reached out to Brisbane Airport and was given some interesting news about how the airport is going to handle all of the grounded aircraft.
- The airport is looking to house a maximum of 101 aircraft
- Brisbane Airport Corporation will be waiving all of the parking fees (these are usually quite high, but a lot smaller than say SYD or MEL)
- The plan is for the airport to store all of the grounded aircraft on vacant and decommissioned taxiways as well as the terminal aprons
- The airport is expecting that the number of aircraft arriving into Brisbane will quickly ramp up starting next week
- Right now, there’s currently only one aircraft that is sitting grounded at the airport
View From The Brisbane Tower
Obviously Brisbane won’t be the only airport where the aircraft will be sitting but this gives you a good idea of how the airlines are spreading them out. As soon as more information becomes available, I’ll be sure to update the post to reflect the new info.
The exact amount of aircraft that will be withdrawn from all carriers I’m sure will be announced in the coming days.