THOUSANDS of locals will be employed during the $80million upgrade of the Nadi International Airport, says project manager Heath Doyle from Hawkins — the New Zealand firm contracted to do the works.

He said on average there was about 100 workers working at the site on a daily basis but this number was expected to increase significantly as work begins on the demolishing and reconstruction of the check-in terminal building.

“The total number of employees and the people involved from the start to finish will be in the thousands,” he said.

“At this stage, I would say more than a thousand people have worked onsite and we can only see that tripling and quadrupling especially when you take into account the factory workers that are involved in producing goods for the project.”

Mr Doyle said work on the project was conducted in shifts on a 24-hour, seven days a week basis.

“Obviously working in an airport environment, there are some things we can’t do in public space so we do have to wait until the public space is cleared and flights have departed before we can go back to completing that work.

“It’s quite a challenge to finish this work and in the morning when the public come back it appears as if nothing’s happened — when in fact a lot has.”

Mr Doyle said work on the airport upgrade was on schedule and a brand new facility was expected to be unveiled in April next year.