Prime TV News ran what it hailed as an “exclusive” report  the other night revealing that Orange Airport is about to undergo major expansion.

It was a good report, and something of crucial interest to the citizens of Orange.

Trouble is, the only thing “exclusive” about it was that Prime was the only local news service running the story that night.  Orange News Now broke the story exclusively way back on October 11 under the heading “Orange Airport Expansion: Plan for Bigger Jets.”

Here’s what we wrote:

Plans are in the wind for a major upgrade of Orange Airport which is said to be aimed at larger passenger jets flying in and out in the future.

Orange News Now has learned that Orange City Council is considering a two-phase expansion of the airport in which the apron in front of the terminal will first be extended by 40 metres.

In the second stage, the taxiing areas will be expanded, and then the runway lengthened at both ends to cope with bigger planes.

The project is being looked at in partnership with the Cadia Valley mine, and is in its preliminary planning stages.

It’s understood the mine’s increasing passenger traffic in and out of Orange, and to mining centres in Western Australia, is the main reason for the airport expansion, and the mine is said to be discussing sharing or paying a major part of the cost.

Orange Airport already caters for jets, with Cadia Mine flying miners in and out aboard twin-engined Focker 100s. But the schedule and passenger rate is limited by the size of the airport’s infrastructure.

We’re told the aim is to bring in Boeing 737 jets which have a seating capacity ranging up to 215, depending on the model – twice the capacity of the Fockers.

Since it came off the drawing boards 37 years ago, the twin-engine narrow-fuselage 737 has been the main short to medium-range workhorse of the worldwide Boeing fleet.

The last major upgrade of the airport was in 2004 when Orange City Council spent $250,000 resealing the runway.

NOTE: Nothing has changed or updated since that article, except that we now have a price — $24 million spread over the next few years.