Gold Coast Airport, or Coolangatta Airport, is an Australian domestic and international airport at the southern end of the Gold Coast, some south of Brisbane and south of Surfers Paradise. The entrance to the airport is situated in the suburb of Bilinga on the Gold Coast. The runway itself straddles five suburbs of twin cities across the state border of Queensland and New South Wales. During summer these states are in two different time zones.
For the 2010–11 financial year, Gold Coast Airport was the sixth busiest airport in Australia in terms of passengers and eighth in aircraft movements. It is also the third fastest growing airport in the country.
History
Until 1999, the airport was known as Coolangatta Airport. this is an Aboriginal word meaning "Place of Good View". It originally consisted (1936) of three grass strips with the intention of only providing emergency landing ground for airmail aircraft transiting between Brisbane and Sydney. Finally, passenger flights took off for the first time in 1939, using the then grassy field of the current Coolangatta site. Regular services were started by Queensland Airlines and Butler Air Transport after the Second World War. Ansett started its own services in 1950 using DC-3s, while Trans Australia Airlines did the same in 1954 using DC-3s too as well as DC-4s and Convairs to link other Australian cities.
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