Perth Airport's Jason Waters warns of years of disruption as terminal consolidation nears

Travellers passing through Western Australia's main aviation gateway should brace for a construction site wrapped around their departure lounge. Perth Airport chief executive Jason Waters has warned of years of upheaval as the airport finally moves to consolidate its four scattered terminals into a single hub and bring Qantas into the fold after years of false starts.

Waters this week released artist's impressions of the planned domestic and international terminal at Airport Central, but could not put a firm figure on the cost or a guaranteed opening date. When Qantas and Perth Airport struck a deal in May 2024 to build the terminal alongside a new parallel runway, the package was priced at $3 billion with a target opening of 2031. Waters said his expectation is that the project remains on target, while conceding there is "a long way to go" before he can give a final view on time and cost. Preliminary work is expected to begin within 12 months, and he has told passengers to expect delays while the airport stays open around the clock through construction.

For an outsider, the geography explains the frustration. Perth Airport currently operates Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 on the eastern side of the runways, with Terminals 3 and 4 on the western side — roughly an eight-kilometre drive or bus ride apart. Qantas runs both its domestic and international services out of Terminals 3 and 4 and will shift to the main terminal after 2031. The split has irritated passengers for years and complicated connections at what is Australia's western gateway to Asia, Africa and Europe.

The consolidation has been discussed for decades and repeatedly derailed. Plans released in 2019 for a $2.5 billion international terminal upgrade that would have made room for Qantas stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Qantas declined to pursue the deal amid commercial pressure. In 2023, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook accused Qantas of "dawdling" and said the airline was holding the state back from becoming the "western gateway to Australia". Cook has now put that history aside, saying the airport's global reach "continues to soar to new heights" and that the new precinct will deliver a major boost to the state economy.

The timing matters for anyone tracking capital in Oceania. The project is competing for construction labour and materials against AUKUS-related infrastructure at the Henderson defence precinct and the Westport container port, road and rail works at Kwinana — a pipeline that could stretch contractors and inflate costs. Perth Airport is privately held, so the deal is less a listed-equity story than a test of how private infrastructure owners and a national carrier share risk on a multibillion-dollar build. It also signals that Western Australia's resources-driven economy is investing in the soft infrastructure — aviation capacity — that underpins tourism, fly-in-fly-out labour and trade links.

What follows is a delicate few years. Waters describes the journey as tricky, and the combination of an open 24/7 airport and thousands of construction workers on site will test passenger patience. If the 2031 target holds, Perth will finally have a single hub worthy of its ambitions. If it slips, the state's gateway will keep asking travellers to make an eight-kilometre dash between terminals.