Case Study: Mining Evacuation

At the announcement of an escalating Yellow Alert cyclone warning off the coast of Western Australia, Corporate Travel Management (CTM) was administered to safely evacuate 550+ mining personnel.

Read on to learn more.

Client

CITIC Pacific Mining

Industry

Mining

Focus

Safely evacuating and relocating 550+ mining personnel during an escalating Yellow Alert cyclone.

Objective

To safely and efficiently evacuate over 550 CITIC Pacific Mining personnel from remote locations during a Yellow Alert cyclone.

Solutions

CTM enabled swift evacuation via proactive weather tracking, emergency team deployment, and added flight capacity.

Outcome

Successful evacuation of 550+ remote personnel within 24 hours, enabled by CTM’s effective coordination and transport negotiations.

Objective

When a Yellow Alert cyclone warning was escalated off the coast of Western Australia, CITIC Pacific Mining engaged CTM to safely evacuate over 550 mining personnel.

The evacuation needed to be completed within a tight timeframe, requiring CTM to arrange sufficient transportation—including scheduled and charter flights—and secure emergency accommodation for displaced staff.

Cyclone activity, by nature, develops with little warning and can quickly change course, while the remote locations of many Australian mining sites add complexity with limited land and air transport options. These factors called for agile planning and rapid response.

In managing this critical relocation, CTM successfully navigated:

Rapidly evolving weather conditions through flexible and adaptive coordination
Limited regional airline capacity by securing both scheduled and charter flights
Scarce regional transport options by organising reliable transfers over the 100km distance from site to airport
The challenges of a public holiday weekend by swiftly mobilising emergency resources to ensure seamless travel arrangements.

Solutions

CTM’s solution was built around several core elements designed to ensure a swift and effective evacuation. The team maintained continuous tracking of the weather system through the Bureau of Meteorology, allowing for proactive decision-making.

CTM activated its Local Emergency Committee and assembled a dedicated consulting team, including two managers and two consultants, who worked throughout the public holiday to coordinate all aspects of the evacuation.

Leveraging strong supplier relationships, CTM was able to divert a scheduled Qantas flight from Paraburdoo to Karratha, successfully evacuating an additional 87 personnel when all other airline capacity had been exhausted.

Following the event, CTM conducted a post-evacuation meeting and debrief with CITIC Pacific Mining to review outcomes and strengthen future response strategies.

Testimonial

Our company recently had the huge task of reducing the number of personnel at our mine sites twice in four weeks due to Cyclones Bianca and Carlos. On both occasions we contacted CTM for assistance with minimal notice, requiring a large number of personnel to be evacuated to Perth and eastern states ports. CTM provided a dedicated consulting team to manage the process, ensuring we met our tight deadlines. CTM always goes above and beyond to meet our travel needs and they have proven that they will go one step further when we need emergency assistance. Our team can always rely on them, and they always provide fantastic service.

- Deirdre Wilcox, Travel Supervisor, Citic Pacific. -

Outcome

Successful evacuation of 550+ remote location personnel.

Through CTM’s successful negotiations with transportation providers, including the rerouting of a scheduled Qantas flight via Paraburdoo, CTM achieved the successful evacuation of all required personnel plus emergency accommodation within 24 hours.