PERTH Airport chief executive Brad Geatches is confident the crowded facility’s expansion plans have enough flexibility to cope with traffic-growth stemming from Western Australia’s booming resources industry.

Transport Minister Anthony Albanese last week signed off on the $120 million Terminal WA, the charter and regional services facility Westralia Airports plans to begin building by October.

The facility will initially cope with 2 million passengers a year and is part of a postponed $1 billion plan to consolidate all the airport’s terminals around the current international facility.

It comes as the demand for charter services, many catering for fly-in, fly-out resource operations, have risen 41 per cent in seven years and cramped conditions at the airport’s existing terminals have become a source of local angst.

A $20m apron has already been built and, when completed in 2012, Terminal WA will have 20 contact stands connected to the terminal by covered walkways and 16 remote stands capable of handling Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 aircraft. The new terminal also aims to cater for interstate low-cost services, leaving Qantas and Virgin Blue at the existing domestic terminal.

Mr Geatches estimated about 30 to 40 per cent of the activity currently in the overcrowded domestic terminal would migrate to Terminal WA prompting an immediate overnight improvement in the domestic precinct.

“It’s quite a significant size single-level terminal with this substantial apron because we’re actually servicing a very significant morning peak and you need to be able to depart a number of aircraft simultaneously,” he said.

Perth has been straining to cope with the competing demands, particularly at peak times, of charter and regular public transport operators.

There has been some relief from the global financial crisis as well as a recently completed $75m redevelopment by Qantas and improvements by the airport to the apron and ground transport facilities.

Mr Geatches said the airport was in talks with all airlines and had “a clear agreement” with several to go the new terminal.

The airport chief admitted there were concerns among some airlines about the cost of the transition and said management may not be able to please all of the airlines. But he said it needed to come up with a solution that was for the overall good.

“We’ve got a good level of general support but they are trying to maximise their position in terms of who goes and who goes when,” he said. “At the end of the day we’ll pour all our energy into attracting them to the proposition but if necessary we will give notice to certain airlines that from a date in the future that that’s where they’re operating from.”

He rejected claims that moves to establish routes directly from the east coast services to resource destinations in Pilbara were in response to congestion at Perth, saying they were a reflection of labour shortages in WA.

(www.theaustralian.com.au)