Manchester Airport celebrates one year of construction

Manchester Airport has marked one year of construction on the biggest investment project in its history, which will see Terminal 2 become 150% bigger.

The programme got under way a year ago after a visit by the Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling. Since then, the airport’s skyline has changed dramatically as the first pier has been built and over 70% of the steelwork has been erected on the terminal extension.

It is one of the biggest construction programmes in the north of England and there are currently 1,200 people working on site – including 80 apprentices, in trades ranging from plumbing and scaffolding to quantity surveying and civil engineering.

So far on the project, more than 14,500 pieces of steel have been installed by steelwork contractor William Hare.
The first pier is set to open to passengers in April 2019. At 216m-long if it was stood upright it would be the tallest building in Manchester. The terminal extension is on course to open in 2020.

Laing O’Rourke Project Director Bryan Glass said: “We’re on schedule to deliver the transformation of Terminal 2 and that certainty of delivery has been driven by our offsite construction approach, with elements of the project manufactured offsite and assembled by our expert project team and technicians. There’s no room for complacency of course! Our team is focused on the next milestone – hand over of the first pier in January 2019.”