Sunshine Coast Airport expansion opens new gates, boosting international capacity

Sunshine Coast Airport's $360 million expansion has reached its operational milestone with the opening of a new international terminal building and four additional gates, giving the region its first purpose-built international facilities and positioning the coast to capture direct Asian market arrivals without requiring connections through Brisbane or Sydney.

The new terminal, designed for a processing capacity of 1,500 international passengers per hour, includes full customs, immigration, and biosecurity facilities alongside 28 retail and food tenancy positions and an aviation fuel farm capable of servicing wide-body aircraft. The expanded apron allows the airport to accommodate up to six aircraft movements per hour, double the previous capacity.

Airport chief executive Andrew Brodie said the expansion unlocked a fundamentally different commercial proposition for the Sunshine Coast, with several Asian carriers having confirmed interest in direct services once the infrastructure was available. He announced that Japanese carrier ANA had signed heads of agreement for a direct Osaka-Sunshine Coast service to begin in the northern winter schedule. "An Osaka service is transformative — it taps one of the world's largest and most sophisticated outbound markets for resort and wellness tourism," he said.

Sunshine Coast Council mayor Rosanna Natoli said the airport expansion was one of the most significant economic development events in the region's history, with modelling showing international air access could generate $450 million annually in additional visitor spending within five years of operation. The region's accommodation sector, already operating at high occupancy during school holiday periods, has responded with 1,200 new hotel rooms under construction.

The domestic terminal will receive its own upgrade in a second stage, targeting improved check-in and boarding gate facilities to handle the growth in domestic routes.

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