The Airport Link is a tunnelled, motorway grade, toll road in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It connects the Brisbane central business district and the Clem Jones Tunnel to the East-West Arterial Road which leads to the Brisbane Airport. It was built in conjunction with the Windsor to Kedron section of the Northern Busway in approximately the same corridor. The Airport Link and busway project involves of tunnelling including the road (6.7 km of twin tunnels), busway tunnels and connecting ramps, as well as 25 bridges and result in over of new road. The Airport Link was Australia's longest road tunnel until the opening of the M8 in Sydney. The estimated construction cost of the Airport Link is $4.8 billion. The toll for the full length is $5.30 for a car. Construction of the Airport Link, Northern Busway and Airport Roundabout Upgrade projects were scheduled for completion in mid-2012. Following a preview walk on 15 July 2012 and final safety approvals, the Airport Link opened to the public at 11.55 pm on 24 July 2012. Contract and controversy The contract was awarded to the consortium BrisConnections, composed of Macquarie Group, Thiess and John Holland, beating two other consortia (North Connect and Northern Motorway). BrisConnections was announced as the preferred bidder on 19 May 2008, and the final contract was awarded on 2 June 2008. Conducted as a public-private partnership (PPP), the financial aspects of the Airport Link project has been mired in controversy from the outset. Macquarie Group charged $110 million in fees for the financial engineering which used the equity from private investors to raise the necessary debt and planned to pay investor distributions from capital, an arrangement which resembles a Ponzi scheme and has been ridiculed as the "dead parrot model", after the famous Monty Python comedy sketch. Former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh enjoyed a free holiday at the Sydney mansion of Thiess director Ros Kelly just before the contract was awarded. Former Labor ministers Terry Mackenroth and Con Sciacca were paid a "success fee", (as government relations advisors) believed to be about $500,000, by BrisConnections after the consortium won the tender. BrisConnections was listed as a unit trust on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) via a $1.2 billion initial public offering (IPO) of installment receipts (or stapled securities) on 31 July 2008 (). This was the largest IPO in Australia in 2008 and the most