East Midlands Airport Runway Resurfacing

Contracting

Manchester

Overview

Colas has a successful track record of implementing works for the Manchester Airport Group (MAG). In 2016, this continued with contracts awarded to carry out taxiway maintenance at Bournemouth Airport, car park resurfacing at Stansted Airport, and most recently, runway resurfacing works at East Midlands Airport. The project included:

  • Rehabilitation of the airport's 2.9km 09-27 runway.
  • Removing the existing asphalt pavement and resurfacing the runway and taxiway tie-ins with new high quality Beton Bitumeux Aeronautique (BBA) surface course.
  • The works were undertaken during day and night shifts across 5 consecutive weekend closures of the runway.
  • The project marked the first time that a UK commercial airport had implemented full shutdowns across multiple weekends to allow large scale runway resurfacing.

2.9 km

runway resurfaced



5

consecutive weekends


Contract in detail

  • Colas has taken a collaborative working approach in accordance with our BS 11000 Collaborative Relationships accreditation.
  • Colas were appointed for Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) over 3 years ago, to help Costain and then Galliford Try develop an optimum solution.
  • Colas worked with designer AECOM as part of an integrated team and provided comprehensive BBA mix designs.
  • The ECI period allowed Colas and Galliford Try to develop the overall construction programme, develop risk contingencies and clarify design issues.
  • Colas developed plans to ensure the project was suitably resourced with over 300 staff and operatives required to meet the intensive programme.
  • During each 48 hour weekend, Colas had a planned 30 hour programme with 6 hour contingency window for implementing the surfacing works.
  • Colas teams planed off the existing Marshall Asphalt runway surface course over a width of 44.2m before laying a new BBA surface course.
  • to produce the 50,000 tonnes of BBA required, Colas established 3 mobile asphalt plants on-site.