Invercargill Airport chief executive Stuart Harris said completing such a heavy construction project was complex, as the airport needed to remain fully operational.
“There is zero tolerance for debris, imperfect surfaces or anything being incomplete. Basically, the pilots shouldn’t know we’ve been there,” he said.
Each night, crews meticulously laid about 500 tonnes of asphalt until about 4am, before repainting and clearing the runway ahead of the first 6am flight.
“We didn’t delay or cancel a single flight, and we’re really proud of that.”
The project’s success came down to collaboration.
“There are so many ways something like this could unravel. It takes planning, trust and teamwork across designers, contractors and the airport team,” he said.
There was an enormous number of vehicle movements. Therefore a lot of careful thought had to be put into the routes they took so they only had to clean up the smallest amount of runway possible.
‘‘They couldn’t leave a single stone lying loose.’’
About 30 Fulton Hogan staff were supported by specialist runway crews from Christchurch to complete the contract.
“The specialist crew live and breathe runway work - they’re all about fine detail,” Mr Harris said.
Runway resurfacing was required about every 15 to 17 years.
The resurfacing covered 1700m of the 2200m runway. The remaining 500m was resurfaced three years earlier when the runway was extended, placing it on a different maintenance cycle.
Machinery for the job had been carefully chosen to minimise night-time noise.
“The milling machine is one of the loudest, so they used the newest one they had because it was actually the quietest,” he said.
“We’re incredibly grateful to the neighbours for their tolerance. They knew it had to be done and there were no complaints.’’
- By Toni McDonald
