Originally Posted by
BuzzBox
A runway extension feasibility study was completed for the Lord Howe Island board about six years ago. It looked at extending the runway 570m to the north-west, into the lagoon, which would allows the operation of Code 3 aircraft such as the DHC8-400. The preliminary business case found the extension would cost about A$200 million and was considered economically unviable.
No idea where it's at now, but I assume it won't go ahead without a significant amount of State and/or Federal Government funding.
According to Wiki there are but 382 inhabitants and a hard limit of 400 tourists (presumably concurrent rather than annual total).