Airservices Australia has been accused of letting down residents over the management of aircraft noise after complaints reached 250 a month.
Residents in Logan’s eastern suburbs are reporting an increased level of aircraft noise between 7pm and midnight.
And while it might be music to the ears of the beleaguered travel industry, at least one community group says suburbs in the flight path of Brisbane’s second runway are “being slaughtered by noise”.
A senate hearing of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee was told planes had been operating over the bay in excess of 50% of the time for departures and in excess of 40% of the time for arrivals.
The issue of aircraft noise has been rising as the number of planes in the air start to return to pre-Covid-19 levels.
During the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee meeting last week, Airservices chief customer experience and strategy officer Peter Curran said Airservices Australia has launched a review of the new parallel runway, flight paths and airspace.
The review also looked at aircraft noise impacts, and he conceded the number of complaints was rising.
The hearing follows warnings from the chairperson at Brisbane Flight Path Community Alliance, David Diamond, who said it was a “major issue” and the airport corporation needs to start listening.
“We are not about moving what’s happened to someone else’s backyard … all we want is what we were told was going to happen,” he said.
“We are getting slaughtered with noise. You can have 12-14 flights coming over a roof in an hour at peak periods and it is mind bending and it is sending the people on the flight paths around the twist.”
Mr Curran said the review was part of standard processes and conceded they had been receiving 250 complaints a month since the runway was opened.
Greens Senator Janet Rice told the hearing the 2006 environmental impact statement originally promised Brisbane residents that flight paths would primarily be over water; that if flight paths over residential areas were necessary they’d be minimized; and that residential areas overflown by departing aircraft should not, to the extent practical, also be overflown by arriving aircraft.
“But the community are telling me that you’ve failed on all four accounts—that nearly a third of flights continue to fly over Brisbane residential homes and families between 10 pm and 6 am; that flight paths have been concentrated over not just inhabited areas but, in fact, over some of Australia’s most densely populated residential areas; and that the same Brisbane residential areas overflown by departing aircraft on flight path I are also overflown by arriving aircraft on flight paths G, H1 and H2,” Senator Rice said.
During a lengthy exchange Mr Curran said the communication and engagement with communities in South-East Queensland around the use of the parallel runway system was that there would be a preferred mode to operate over water where practicable.
Senator RICE: So you’re basically saying it’s not practicable?
Mr Curran: The two main drivers for our ability to operate the over-the-water mode, which is absolutely the preferred mode, are traffic levels and weather. Those are the two primary drivers. Since the runway was opened, we’ve been operating over the bay in excess of 50 per cent of the time for departures and in excess of 40 per cent of the time for arrivals.
Senator RICE: Do you agree that that’s very different from what the community was promised in the Environmental Impact Statement?
“No. That’s certainly not my interpretation and that’s certainly not what was communicated in the engagement activities in which Airservices participated. The third mode was always made clear—that it would be subject to weather and traffic load” Mr Curran said
“It’s certainly not what the community understood they were promised during the EIS process. You’ve got a community that’s pretty grumpy,” Senator Rice said.
Mr Curran: We certainly have seen an elevated number of complaints. We’ve seen 1,591 complainants since the runway was opened. Since the beginning of this year, that works out to about six to eight individual complainants per day.
Senator Rice said the aircraft noise was having multiple impacts on the resident’s ability to have peace at home.
“ It impacts on their children. It impacts on sleeping babies,” Senator Rice said.
Mr Curran said there would be a review starting in July. Asked what changes could occur if the outcomes of that review show that the impact on residents is unacceptable Mr Curran said there was the potential for some changes to flight path and operations. It is the case, however, that moving a flight path tends to go from one neighbourhood to another neighbourhood, so it becomes a trade-off and a matter for consultation and engagement with communities. I should also flag that, for those communities that are nearer to the airport, the options and solutions around what sort of abatement can be offered them is relatively limited, given that we need to have aircraft lined up some distance from the runway in a straight line, essentially. So for those communities that are directly in the line of the airport the options are relatively limited.
“So they’ve just got to suck it up. Thank you,” Senator Rice said.
