FIFO from Brisbane: what to do with a car between swings

Three ways FIFO workers handle a car

On a fly-in fly-out roster your car spends half its life or more parked. There are three common set-ups, and the right one depends on your roster and where you live:

1. Drive to the airport and park for the swing. Simple and quick on fly-out day, but you pay for parking the whole time you're away.
2. Leave the car at home and get to the airport another way. A lift, a taxi or rideshare, or the Airtrain if you live near the train network. The car sits at home, still costing registration and insurance.
3. No car of your own. Use public transport and taxis at home, and rent a car for longer breaks or when you're between contracts.

What does airport parking cost for a swing?

Brisbane Airport's budget long-stay car parks are AIRPARK and AIRPARK 2, on airport land close to the terminals, open 24 hours with surveillance. A free bus runs to both terminals every 15 minutes from 3:30am to 12:30am and every 30 minutes overnight; allow extra time, since road conditions affect it.^[1]

Closer to the terminals, ParkLong is a 4 to 8 minute walk away, at $226 for 7 days, $244 for 8 days and $18 for each extra day at the drive-up rate.^[2] Prices online change with availability at the time you book, the gates and pay machines don't take EFTPOS, and if your swing runs over you can extend, but overstay rates apply.^[3]

Over a year of two-week swings, that's roughly 13 stays of $202 each at drive-up rates, a bill in the thousands just for parking. Booking ahead brings it down; a lift to the airport removes it.

Leaving the car at home: registration and the battery

Queensland doesn't publish a way to pause registration while you're away. You can cancel it, handing in the plates and getting back the unused part of the registration and CTP, less a cancellation fee and without the traffic improvement fee.^[4] But if the registration has been expired for more than 3 months you'll need to register the car again, and to drive it unregistered to be registered you must carry a CTP certificate and remove its plates.^[5]

If the car lives on the street, keep it registered: Brisbane City Council treats parking an unregistered vehicle on a road as an offence, and can fine the owner and tow the car.^[6] An unregistered car is only an option if it's off the road, on your driveway or in a garage.

Cars that sit for two or three weeks at a time can come back to a flat battery, especially older ones. A battery maintainer in a garage, or asking someone to start and drive the car mid-swing, saves a jump-start on your first morning home.

The drive home after a swing

The last shift, the flight and the airport wait can add up to a very long day before you even reach the car park. Queensland's road safety guidance warns against driving at times you'd normally be asleep and after a full day's work, and says to stop for at least 15 minutes every 2 hours. Being awake for more than 17 hours affects driving in a similar way to a blood alcohol concentration over 0.05, and microsleeps can last up to 10 seconds.^[7]

If you've come off night shifts, the safest plan is not to drive straight home: get a lift, take a taxi or rideshare, or sleep first. If you live on the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast or further out, that matters even more. More on the warning signs is in long drives and fatigue.

When renting makes more sense than owning

Renting doesn't suit every FIFO roster. A rental is charged for the whole time you have it, including the days it sits while you're on site, and most longer-term rentals have a minimum period. It tends to fit these cases:

• You've just started FIFO from Brisbane and don't yet know whether the roster, or the job, will last.
• Your car has been written off or sold and you need one for a long break or a stretch of local work; see car written off or stolen.
• You're between contracts, or working a local job for a few months before your next site role; see a 3-month contract in Brisbane.
• You have a long break, such as leave between rosters, that's at least as long as the rental's minimum.

If your work is at the port rather than a remote site, see getting to work at the Port of Brisbane; hospital rosters are covered in hospital shift workers.