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Supporting safe operations today while planning for tomorrow

Albany Airport is a critical piece of infrastructure supporting regional connectivity, economic activity and community access in Western Australia’s Great Southern region.

With the existing runway surface reaching the end of its service life, the City of Albany needed a clear, practical path forward — balancing immediate safety requirements with longer-term planning and investment decisions.

RP Infrastructure was engaged to work alongside the City to define the scope of works, assess risks and develop a structured approach to maintaining safe operations while planning for future upgrades.

 

The challenge

The City was managing a range of competing priorities:

• An aging runway surface requiring intervention
• The need to maintain safe, uninterrupted airport operations
• Balancing short-term maintenance with long-term infrastructure planning
• Operating within local government processes and funding constraints
• The need to move quickly to align works with seasonal delivery windows

Making the right decisions required a clear understanding of risks, priorities and available delivery options.

 

Our solution

We worked closely with the City of Albany to develop a structured, practical approach to managing both immediate risks and long-term planning for the airport.

Our role focused on helping the client make informed decisions — starting with defining a clear project scope that aligned with both short- and long-term objectives. We supported the City in understanding the condition of the existing asset, identifying key risks and developing mitigation strategies to ensure the runway could continue to operate safely in the interim.

At the same time, we established a clear pathway for delivery — working within local government requirements to assess procurement and delivery options, and supporting the City to fast-track necessary maintenance works ahead of the summer construction window.

By acting as an independent, client-side advisor, we provided objective, experience-led guidance — helping the City navigate complexity, prioritise investment and focus on the most appropriate, fit-for-purpose solution.

This approach has provided:

• A structured framework for managing current and future works
• Improved clarity around risks and mitigation strategies
• Confidence in decision-making across short- and long-term planning
• A clear pathway to deliver critical runway upgrades within required timeframes

 

“The level of expertise, service and assistance we’ve been provided during this project has been excellent. With RP Infrastructure’s guidance, we’ve been able to make holistic decisions with confidence as we feel we’ve been presented with all the information to do so.”

— Kristen Brown, City of Albany