Newcastle Airport preparing for £17m 'overnight' replacement of runway

Hoping to minimise disruption, the scheme will run over a series of months with the hope that no flights will be impacted.

The runway is usually replaced every 15 to 20 years, with this newest update starting at the end of 2024.

“From the fourth of November until March we’ll be digging up each section of the runway overnight” explained Alice Andreasen, Chief Sustainability and Communications Officer at the airport.

“We’ll be closing the airspace at about 10pm each night and reopening it at 6am for the first flight” she added.

“We’ve planned it with airlines and everyone is well prepared. We’ll have a new runway by Easter.

“We’re not an airport without our runway. We need the best quality runway and this is a really exciting process.

This will be the next step in upgrading the airport, following a £20m investment into the terminal to improve customer experience earlier this year.

This winter will see another £20m of investment as well as the runway project, which has been nearly two years in the making.

“It’s got to the point where we’ve put so much investment into the terminal building, it kind of felt right timewise to look at resurfacing the runway” added Andreasen, who was speaking at an event celebrating the airport’s 40th anniversary of working with Dutch airline KLM.

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“We’ve made incrimental improvements to the runway over the past decade but the timing for us is key. We’re doing it after half term and before the Easter holiday so it’s minimal impact to the customer and minimal impact to the airlines as well.

“Most people won’t notice anything. It’ll be a seamless experience.

“I’ve seen nothing like the project in my entire life.”