Sunshine Coast Airport

Sunshine Coast Airport is the principal airport serving Queensland's Sunshine Coast region, located at Marcoola on the Pacific coast roughly 6 mi (10 km) north of Maroochydore and 65 mi (105 km) north of Brisbane. The airport is owned by Sunshine Coast Council (via a long-term lease to operator Palisade Investment Partners) and functions as the primary air gateway to one of Australia's largest domestic tourism catchments, encompassing Noosa, Maroochydore, Caloundra, the Hinterland ranges, and the broader Wide Bay-Burnett region. A major runway extension project completed in 2020 lengthened the principal runway to 9,186 ft (2,800 m), enabling the first scheduled international services in the airport's history. The airport handles 13 routes across 6 destinations through 6 airlines. Jetstar, Virgin Australia, and Qantas anchor the domestic network with heavy flows to Sydney and Melbourne — two of the busiest domestic trunk routes in Australia — plus Adelaide, Canberra, and seasonal services. Air New Zealand operates the flagship transtasman service to Auckland, a route directly enabled by the 2020 runway extension. The airport serves a distinctly leisure-weighted traffic mix, with strong weekend and school-holiday peaks reflecting the region's profile as a beach, surf, and retirement destination. The new runway 13/31 measures 9,186 ft (2,800 m) on an asphalt surface, accommodating Boeing 737, Airbus A320/A321, and widebody 787 aircraft. The terminal building has been progressively expanded to match capacity growth, and a second-stage master-plan upgrade is under development to support continued traffic expansion. The airport operates within close proximity to environmentally sensitive wetlands, and mitigation measures around the runway extension have included a major offshore sand dredging and beach nourishment program.