2010 Newsletters

Volume 15, Issue 1 August 2010

Curfew under attack as airlines blast through the fog

Airlines, including Qantas, are pushing a loophole in the curfew law and flying over the inner west when we are supposed to be left in peace. Landing from over Botany Bay is allowed between 5 and 6 am. But these planes have attempted to land in the fog and when they find they don’t have enough visibility (surprise!) they fly on over the inner west waking people as they go.

A loophole in the curfew law means they get away with this outrageous attack on our sleep. This happened last September when Qantas and British Airways tried to land during the dust storm and then flew around the inner west before 6 am. Transport minister Albanese has not changed the law to close this loophole.

On Thursday 29 July there were five flights before 6 am. Two planes, a Lear jet from Adelaide and a Qantas 747 jumbo jet actually made two unsuccessful attempts to land, flying on over the suburbs each time. The following day there were more planes before 6 am as the pilots tried to land in the fog.

This must stop! The curfew law must be amended so that aircraft are not allowed to land before 6 am if the weather means they cannot do so safely. Albanese is fast asleep and has failed to stop this outrage. Qantas and other airlines don’t think there should be a curfew anyway, because their modern planes are so quiet. See the story below about aviation apologist Tom Ballantyne.

New air navigation system threatens more political flight paths

A new navigation system, based on satellite navigation will be introduced into Australian airports. Sydney residents were not informed, even though agreements have been signed several years ago.

Unlike the present set up where aircraft follow a long straight flight path when landing, the new system allows curved and dog leg flight paths. The final approach to an airport can be joined as close as 2 kilometres to the end of the runway. Planes can fly almost any path on landing as well as take off.

This gives new opportunities for political manipulation of flight paths, where flight paths could be kept off marginal electorates and dump on safe seats. Flight paths could change with every new federal government. All suburbs within 20 km of the airport are at risk.

A US company has won a $10 million contract with the federal government to set up new flight paths for 28 Australian airports. The satellite based system called Required Performance Navigation allows extremely precise flying on predetermined paths logged into the aircraft’s computers.

The suburbs nearest the airport will always cop the noise as planes line up for final approach. The Labor held seats of Grayndler, Barton and Kingsford-Smith are closest to the airport and will cop the worst noise until the airport is moved out of Sydney. Aircraft noise is mainly a Labor problem, but Labor has failed to solve it.

There is plenty of precedent for political manipulation of flight paths. Labor aimed the third runway at the safe seat of Grayndler, taking it off the marginal seats of Barton and Phillip (since abolished in a redistribution). The Howard Liberal Government moved the take off flight paths away from Howard’s seat of Bennelong, sacrificing the seat of Lowe (now Reid) held by Liberal back bencher Zammit.

Airservices Australia first told the government’s Sydney Airport Community (politicians) Forum of the new system in Decenber last year. Until then, Airservices had avoided reporting on the 2007 conference of the International Civil Aviation Organisation which mandated the introduction of this technology.

Airservices had planned to introduce RPN into Sydney before the end of this year. Transport Minister Albanese said that consultation had begun with SACF and the system would not be introduced unless in assisted in fairer noise sharing.

New hope from new technology

A near city airport could use RPN technology to avoid towns and villages with flght paths weaving between inhabited areas. This is done at Munich which moved their airport out of the city in 1995. For 40 km before landing, planes follow a twisting path to avoid towns and villages in the German countryside.

The suburb of Kurnell, which stands alone on a peninsula across Botany Bay from the airport, could be avoided by aircraft using the new system. There is no possible flight path around suburbs north, east and west of the airport, the only way to avoid them is to move the airport out of the city.

Air Services tells residents not to complain too much

At the recent Senate Inquiry into noise sharing, Air Services bureaucrat Matt Wardell complained that some noise affected people were complaining too much.

Summer Hill resident Johann Heinrich has a noise meter connected to his computer. Monitoring the noise, Johann makes a list each day of planes which make too much noise and faxes the list to Air Services and Federal Ministers Anthony Albanese (Transport) and Peter Garrett (Environment). How can they deny that his complaints are reasonable when he has measured the noise?

Air Services complaint line is just a sink for complaints. The noise is above the limit on any measure, but we are expected to cop it sweet.

Federal elections comment

Only the Greens stand for ending Sydney’s aircraft noise nightmare. Labor and Liberal both approved massive expansion of Sydney Airport – they both ignore the rights of Sydney people to a safe, peaceful and healthy environment. To put either of the big parties ahead of the Greens when you vote is to say “that’s all right, I’ll be a willing victim”.

The Greens agree with No Aircraft Noise that the airport must be moved out of our city. They do not have a preferred site as we do with Wilton, but they have the correct principle – the airport is too big for the city and must be moved.

We know from their actions that the preferred airport site for Liberal and Labor is at Mascot. Labor offers the false hope of a second airport, while being careful not to promise that it would reduce noise in the city. A second airport would be used to move small panes out of Mascot, leaving us with the big jets and more noise than ever.

There is no hope at all from the Liberal Party which doesn’t even have a Sydney Airport policy on their website. They privatised Bankstown Airport as well as Sydney and their unstated policy is to use Bankstown to take the small regional aircraft out of Mascot.

But there is hope – Sydney Airport is unable to provide for all of our aviation needs and soon a decision must be made. The airport is inefficient and can only operate with a curfew. The land is needed for urban consolidation – new suburbs, new workplaces and new parks will be a much better use of scarce inner city land. A new airport outside the city will be efficient, operate 24 hours and be connected by fast train to the city.

The noisiest place in Australia is the electorate of Grayndler in the inner west. A safe seat is a dangerous place and as long as Grayndler is a safe Labor seat, Labor will think it’s safe to dump aircraft noise on us. The election in Grayndler is a two horse race - only Labor or Greens can win this seat. Labor has taken us for granted and approved the expansion of Sydney airport.

If you are voting in Grayndler, make sure you put Sam Byrne of the Greens ahead of Labor when you number all the squares on the ballot paper.

Greens push Very Fast Train

The Greens want a Very Fast Train to be built between Sydney and Melbourne which would transfer a lot of plane trips onto the rail. Sydney to Melbourne is the busiest air route in Australia and the fifth busiest in the world. Rail would reduce greenhouse gases generated by travellers between the two cities.

A VFT could link an out of Sydney airport to the city on the way to Canberra and Melbourne. This would make travel times to the new airport fast enough to easily replace the present airport.

Aviation apologists in fairy land

“Airlines argue privately that Sydney Airport’s cap of 80 movements an hour has passed its "use-by" date and that the night curfew is nonsense because the noise footprint of modern aircraft is contained within the airports perimeter,” Orient Aviation magazine writer Tom Ballantyne wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Noise monitoring shows that current generation aircraft are way too noisy for residential areas. The latest pin up aircraft of the low noise argument is the giant Airbus A380. Over Leichhardt the A380 is above 81dBA (decibels), when we need to be below 70 in the day and 60 at night to be acceptable under the Australian Standards. As far out as Hunters Hill the A380 is still above 74dBA.

The daily experience of thousands of Sydney people is that both new and old jets wake you up, disrupt your conversations, interfere with schooling and, as the Kurnell study showed, increase people’s blood pressure.

Volume 15, Issue 1 March 2010

Aviation White Paper – ineffective minister postpones action

In December the Federal Government’s Aviation White Paper was released, exposing Labor’s lack of planning for our future. A joint NSW and Federal Government “Task Force” will look at Sydney’s air traffic needs and report by the middle of 2011, further delaying any decision.

Albanese has laboured for two years in office and only produced two reports and another committee. By contrast the Hawke Government had examined 10 sites and produced EIS’s for a major second airport at Badgerys Creek or Wilton after two years in office.

But Hawke later decided to build a third runway at Sydney Airport rather than build a second Sydney airport. Over 13 years Labor bought up the land and announced 3 different airports for Badgerys Creek, but never turned the second sod.

The ministerial go slow on another airport allows the present Sydney Airport to expand to bursting point, especially as Albanese recently approved their 20 year Master Plan. Albanese admitted that neither Sydney Airport nor Sydney residents could cope with the predicted increase in air traffic, noise and pollution. So he agrees with NAN that the present airport cannot cope and that it is a major polluter, but he won’t take the next step to move it out of the city.

The White Paper says that future airport planning will prevent new housing on flight paths at new airports. Albanese has not acted to prevent development approved by the NSW Government at Tralee on Canberra airport’s flight path. In a monstrous hypocrisy, Australian noise standards are enforced on the community, but not on the aviation industry, which will continue to impose higher noise zones on existing residential populations.

In his maiden speech Albanese said, “In the longer term, however, the solution must be to lower the number of aircraft movements over the inner west. It must not be forgotten that this area is the most densely populated in Australia.” (Hansard 1996)

Liberal Party policy is to put all flights through Sydney Airport for the next few decades. In 2005, the Howard Government decided not to look for a second airport site. The Greens want Sydney Airport moved outside the Sydney basin.

Pushing out the smaller aircraft as traffic keeps building

Sydney Airport cannot cope with the expanding air traffic and wants to move regional flights out of the peak hour and out of the airport altogether. (See Sydney Airport’s submission to the Aviation White Paper)

Analysis of the numbers of jet and non-jet aircraft using Sydney Airport shows that smaller aircraft are being replaced by larger noisier jets.

           % of Jets     % of Non-jets
2005     68.65           31.35
2006     69.56           30.44
2007     70.12           29.88
2008     73.26           26.74
2009     75.10           24.90

This is happening together with the progressive up-scaling in aircraft size across the fleet and still the number of total aircraft movements increase. Despite the changing ratio in aircraft size, total aircraft movements increased from 267,774 in 2004 to 282,524 in 2009. This was a net increase of 14,750 or 2,950 per annum. By extending the period to 2009 this eliminates any distortion from the record 2008 total aircraft movements of 296,181 which would have resulted in a net increase of 7,100 per annum over the 4 years from 2004 to 2008.

Bureaucrat mentions the elephant

Air Services Australia officer Richard Dudley said, “In my opinion, the northerly target will never be reached.” Everyone in the government knows this, but until now nobody has dared to mention this elephant in the room.

By saying this, Dudley admitted that noise sharing at Sydney Airport will never be able to reduce flights over suburbs north of the airport to the level promised in the Long Term Operating Plan (LTOP). The Long Term Operating Plan, introduced by the Howard Government and continued by the Rudd Government, promised to reduce flights north of the airport to 17% of the total airport movements.

Dudley told the Sydney Airport “Community” Forum (SACF) meeting that the target had never been reached once for any month since the plan began in the late 1990’s. They had once been within 5% of the target, but that was a month with unusual weather patterns.

The average of flights north of the airport is usually about 30% and includes take offs and landings by the biggest and noisiest international jets. This is an admission that noise sharing has not worked and things will only get worse for the Inner West and Lower North Shore as air traffic continues to increase. Whenever there are more than 45 flights an hour, the East West Runway cannot be used and the two North South runways take all the flights.
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese has given the Sydney Airport Community Forum the task of providing him with advice on the abatement of aircraft noise at Sydney Airport and in particular is the main body for consultation on LTOP.

Now that the department responsible for air traffic control admits that LTOP will never achieve its main aim, Albanese must get moving on a new airport to replace the present nightmare.

Go slow eases back a little

In February, Bureaucrat Maureen Ellis told the SACF meeting that the joint Federal - NSW Planning Task Force doesn’t necessarily “jump to a second airport” for Sydney. Ms Ellis is the head of the Aviation Environment Policy Section in the Federal Department of Infrastructure. Until now, everyone had assumed that the joint committee would find a site for a second Sydney airport.

Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese announced in December that he had established “a joint planning taskforce which will identify strategies and locations to meet the additional aviation capacity which the Sydney region needs.” ABC Radio, 16 December 2009.

Eight lane motorway leads to Sydney Airport car parks

The NSW Government’s plan to double the tunnels on the M5 motorway will create an 8 lane car park leading to Sydney Airport’s parking stations. They want to waste $4.5 billion on a plan that will create greater congestion in the inner city and divert money from fixing the overloaded city rail and freight rail networks.

The Southern Cross drive cannot take any more traffic from the M5 and the local roads around St Peters cannot cope with the extra traffic from the proposed new arterial road connected to the M5.

Sydney Airport will welcome the extra traffic to their parking stations, the airport’s main source of revenue. They have built one 12 storey car park at the International Terminal and gained approval from the former Howard Government to build another one.

In addition to the air pollution from the large jets at Mascot, increasing car traffic will worsen our air quality. The Carr/Iemma/Rees/Keneally State Labor government has built lots of motorways, but has failed to solve Sydney’s growing transport crisis.

Volume 14, Issue 3 November 2009

The greening of Mascot – new suburbs to replace an old airport

What would be the best use of the current Sydney Airport site, after we have moved the airport out of our city? With Sydney’s population predicted to grow to as much as 7 million by the middle of this century with the Federal Government’s immigration program, medium or high density housing will be essential. It may not be a good idea to expand that much, but Sydney will need more housing. The new suburbs should also have parkland, especially along the Botany Bay frontage. Waterfront walking and bicycle tracks could join up the existing paths.

Employment land will also be needed. Next to Port Botany and connected to the city with two existing railway stations, the new suburbs can provide a good location for import/export and high tech industries. Over 900 hectares will become available, slowing the expansion of housing on the city’s fringe.

Jets blast suburbs awake – Qantas and BA fly through the dust storm

Twice Qantas and British Airways jets have rudely awakened people before the end of the 6 am airport curfew. Each time they have attempted to land in bad weather, first in thick fog on Thursday 17 September and again during the massive dust storm on Wednesday 23 September.

AirServices Australia told an angry Summer Hill school teacher that the Thursday flights had been given permission to land at the airport from over Botany Bay, but had been unable to land because of the fog. ASA says that the responsibility rests with the pilot in command of a jet whether to attempt to land.

Qantas flight Q6 and BA flight BA15 aborted their landings on Thursday just after 5 am and on the following Wednesday it was again Qantas Q6 at 5.06 am and BA15 at 5.33 am which blasted through the dust storm. A Summer Hill man recorded three of the planes at 75 decibels (dBA), 62 dBA and 78 dBA - way above the background noise in the quietly sleeping suburb.

Some international jets are allowed to land before the 6 am curfew ends, but they are not supposed to fly over the densely populated suburbs north of the airport. Even the planes landing over Botany Bay still disturb many people in Kurnell, Kyeemagh, Tempe and Botany, regularly disrupting sleep.

Why didn’t they divert to another airport when it was obvious that the fog and the dust storm made it dangerous to attempt to land in Sydney? These overflights have not happened for many years – are the airlines trying it on? We know the airlines don’t want the curfew to remain at Sydney Airport.

Lots of near misses in NSW skies

AAP has reported that there is an average of ten near misses between aircraft in NSW every year. Since January 2007 there have been 32 near misses between civilian planes above Sydney. The closest near miss involved a Saab aircraft and a helicopter. The Air Transport Safety Bureau reported that two near misses resulted from air traffic controllers being distracted or making mistakes.

There is a continuing fear that sooner or later we will have a major air crash in Sydney. Flight paths are increasingly complicated and the expansion of a nearby second airport increases that risk.

A crash near Sydney Airport threatens some of the densest housing in Australia, as well as the Orica chemical factory, the Port Botany LPG terminal and Sydney’s major petrol refinery at Kurnell.

Bankstown Master Plan: Sydney’s worst possible second airport

Bankstown Airport has applied to operate interstate jet services to Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as more flights to regional NSW. They want to operate 32 passenger flights per day, up from 12 at present. While this is a low number compared to 800 flights per day at Sydney Airport, these flights would position Bankstown as a de facto second airport. Most of Bankstown’s air traffic is general aviation, air freight, flying schools and flying clubs. Total flights are expected to reach 427,000 per year, or 1,250 per day.

Bankstown Airport denies that it wants to be Sydney’s second airport, but its Master Plan means that’s what it could become. This is the worst possible second airport for Sydney as Bankstown, like Mascot, is surrounded by houses. Bankstown would only take regional aircraft and smaller jets, preventing any removal of international jets at Mascot and increasing noise in both sets of suburbs as big jets replace small aircraft at Mascot.

In its submission to the Aviation Green Paper, Sydney Airport asked to be allowed to move regional aircraft out of the peak hours. The airport also asked the Federal Government to let them increase their airport charges for regional aircraft so as to make it more likely they would move to Bankstown. (See pages 6 and 7, Sydney Airport submission at http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/nap/submissions.aspx )

Bankstown was the Howard Government’s second airport, a plan admitted just once by former Transport Minister John Anderson in December 2000, before Bankstown was privatised. “The Government has decided to make Bankstown Airport available as an overflow airport for Sydney,” he said. (Media Release 13 December 2000)

Macquarie bought out of running Macquarie Airports for $345 million

Macquarie Bank has scored a fabulous windfall from giving up the rights to manage Macquarie Airports, a holding company with investments in Sydney and European airports. Strapped for cash in the financial crisis, Macquarie Bank has cashed up the future value of managing the airport company, estimated value around $10 million a year. Or maybe they think they have sucked as much as they can from the airport monopoly. Macquarie Bank remains a major shareholder in Macquarie Airports.

Labor dumps Aviation Community Advocate

The Labor government has stopped independent technical advice on aircraft noise by failing to renew the contract of Aviation Community Advocate Tony Williams and discontinuing the position. Williams reported to the government’s hand picked Sydney Airport Community Forum. The forum’s March meeting called for the position to be continued.

The community needs independent expert advice on aircraft noise. Information on aircraft noise is not always openly available or easy to understand. It doesn’t help when Sydney Airport uses the “commercial in confidence” excuse to avoid telling NAN the mix of aircraft using the airport in 2029. The Air Services Australia noise complaints line is understaffed, unhelpful and patronising to people who call.

Williams did his job too well for the government’s liking. He found that the noise forecast in the airport’s 2029 Master Plan seriously underestimated the noise caused by night time flights of large jets. This is documented in the SACF submission on the Master Plan, available in pdf form from No Aircraft Noise.

Keneally misses Canberra planes

NSW Planning Minister Kristina Keneally said that noise from planes using Canberra Airport wasn’t a big problem for a proposed new suburb of Queanbeyan. “And when I visited Tralee a few months ago, standing on the site of the proposed school, I must say that the aircraft noise was hardly significant”, Ms Keneally said. She visited the proposed development site during a mid afternoon lull while planes were using a different flight path.

Threat of sausage sizzle stops Tiger stripes

Tempe residents were outraged by Sydney Airport’s proposal to allow Tiger Airlines to paint giant tiger stripes on a disused water tower on airport land next to Tempe Reserve. Transport Minister and local MP Anthony Albanese was not very sympathetic to residents at first, but as the resident’s campaign gained momentum with a planned sausage sizzle, Albanese decided to act. As Transport Minister, he is the determining authority for developments at Sydney Airport, so he was able to refuse permission for the tiger stripes. One small step for the long suffering residents!

A simple proposition: Sydney Airport will soon be full

The existing airport will run out of capacity in about ten years (15 years at best). It will be full. What will the Government of the day do? Expanding the existing airport is not practical. Will they buy Tempe and St. Peters to expand the airport? If so, they should also buy another couple of 100,000 dwellings at Sydney prices under the intolerable air corridors.

In order to make way for the construction the Sydney Harbour Bridge which commenced in 1923 an estimated 469 buildings – homes and businesses on the north side of the harbour – were demolished with little or no compensation. That won’t happen today. Property owners have the right to claim compensation from the Commonwealth (Lands Acquisition Act 1955). But we have no legal rights for compensation for aircraft noise.
http://sydney-harbour-bridge.bos.nsw.edu.au/building-the-bridge/rivets.php

Successive Federal Governments Have Failed Us In 1983 the then Federal Government directed the Department of Aviation to find a suitable site for a second airport. It was acknowledged then (page 3 of the 1985 EIS) that "A decision to take no action or to defer or abandon the site selection process at this time is thus unlikely to remove the issue from the public agenda." They chose Badgery Creek as the site and they failed us. What we needed was a new airport to replace the existing one, instead they Labor built the third runway and dumped more noise on Sydney residents.

Ten Site Locations Nominated for the 1985 Study Closer sites: Badgerys Creek, Bringelly, Holsworthy, Scheyville and Londonderry. (The Howard Government examined and rejected a closer site at Holsworthy in 1998)
Mid-distance sites: Darkes Forest, Somersby, Warnervale and Wilton.
Outlying site: Goulburn.

These were short listed by evaluating amongst other factors, airport layouts and the average number of residents that would be displaced. This process resulted in Badgerys Creek being the preferred "closer" site and Wilton was the superior "mid-distance" site. Thus it was Badgerys Creek and Wilton that were compared.

The Proposed Wilton Site The original proposal was for a 1,440 ha site of which 1,295 ha was in government ownership. This would make it 59% larger than Sydney Airport. It would be 10% larger than Singapore’s Changi International Airport. But still smaller than all the other capital city airports of which Brisbane is the largest at 2,700 ha. The original proposal appears inadequate for a replacement airport and should be almost doubled in size. 89.9% of the proposed site was on Government land in 1985.

Water quality furphy One of the commonly misquoted criticisms of the Wilton site was that it was rejected for being within the metropolitan catchment area. The proposed site contains parts of four drainage basins: the Allens, Cascade and Wallandoola Creeks and other small drainage tributaries. Water from Allens Creek does not enter the Sydney water supply system. The other creeks flow or are presently diverted into Sydney’s water supply.

The only potential sources of contaminants that were identified are site run-off and effluent from on-site operations. The likely method of dealing with this is pre-treatment on-site prior to discharge to a sewer or complete on-site treatment. Run-off designated as clean (from car parks, roofs, etc) would be discharged into a retarding basin and would be prevented from entering the Sydney water supply system. Suitable drainage systems would just be part and parcel of normal development activity.

The 1985 EIS stated that no contaminated water from the site would enter the supply system (page 467). Further, the risk from emergency fuel dumping would be negligible as the procedure should not be carried out in the immediate area, but out to sea as should be done at present.

Air pollution Wilton will only remove part of the air pollution from the present Sydney Airport out of the Sydney basin. It will be more efficient, hence less pollution and is near the edge of the basin so some of the pollution will be blown elsewhere. As the busiest air route from Sydney is to/from Melbourne, locating the airport on the southern side reduces pollution from overflights. As ground transport is more fuel efficient than aviation, the extra distance to Wilton will be compensated by shorter flights to Melbourne.

It is unlikely that any airport solution would incorporate an outlying site. If anything, a mid-distance site like Wilton would lessen the impact otherwise imposed by a closer site. Wilton should be assessed as Sydney’s only public transport airport.

Volume 14, Issue 2 August 2009

2009 Monster Plan approved
Two concessions, one betrayal and no effective action

On 19 June, Transport Minister Anthony Albanese approved Sydney Airport’s Master Plan for massive expansion of the airport. The airport wants to increase air traffic over the next 20 years to 427,400 flights per year, up from 286,100 in 2007.

When he was in opposition, Transport Minister Albanese condemned the 2004 Master Plan because it meant more planes, more noise and more road traffic congestion. The huge number of planes meant that the plan threatened the curfew and the cap on maximum aircraft movements per hour. Nothing has changed; the new plan is for even more planes.

Why then has Albanese approved the airport’s Master Plan for the next 20 years? It seems that pragmatism is reserved for those in opposition, whilst hypocrisy is reserved for those in government and the forte of our Minister for Transport is short term memory loss.

Minister admits Sydney Airport cannot cope with future air traffic

Transport Minister Anthony Albanese has conceded that Sydney Airport cannot provide for our future aviation needs. “As the Airport gets busier, the supporting road and rail infrastructure will become more congested, delays more frequent,” Albanese said. Albanese doesn’t accept that the airport “can and should handle the projected growth in traffic.”

Macquarie Airports’ chairman Max Moore-Wilton recently claimed that Sydney Airport would be able to cope with the next 20 years of air traffic demand. Moore-Wilton said that after the Global Financial Crisis was over, air traffic would grow at 4-5% per year. No Aircraft Noise calculates that Sydney Airport will be overloaded well before 2029 at that rate of growth.

The claim that Sydney Airport can cope with future demand has been undermined by the airport’s request for regional aircraft to be moved to Bankstown Airport and out of the peak hours.

Residents under pressure: another concession

Despite approving the airport Master Plan, Albanese also said that the predicted traffic volumes “would place considerable added pressure on those communities living around the airport”. As the airport gets busier, this would result in “nearby residents exposed to even longer periods of aircraft noise”.

Sydenham in the minister’s seat of Grayndler would not have a single day’s respite from aircraft noise. The East West Runway is only available for noise sharing when there are less than 45 flights per hour. Under the Master Plan, this will be exceeded from 6.30 am to 10.30 pm, increasing the noise on suburbs immediately north of the airport.

Albanese will be dumping up to 469 planes per day on his electorate. While Sydney Airport claims that noise will fall from 2024 to 2029, it will be much worse than at present. The “new, quiet” aircraft are still very noisy and there will be lots more of them.

Albanese has announced a second airport study, but his statement made no promise to limit or reduce aircraft noise.

Second airport slow moves

Transport Minister Albanese has invited the NSW Government to take part in a study for a second Sydney airport in an admission that Sydney Airport cannot cope with future traffic demand. The terms of reference will not be finalised until after the White Paper on Aviation is completed later this year. Waiting until then is a further bureaucratic go slow on action to reduce aircraft noise. The Badgerys fiasco was the last attempt to build a second Sydney airport, Labor failed in 13 years, the Liberals didn’t build it in 11 years.

Albanese needs to say how he would manage a two airport system without it resulting in more noise in Grayndler. Splitting air services for Sydney will not provide an effective and integrated transport system.

A new airport for Sydney should be close to the city, able to take the full range of aircraft, have an acceptable location for 24 hour operations and be connected to the city’s transport network. It’s time to move the airport outside the city.

Sydney Airport under estimating noise in 2029

Sydney Airport’s 20 year Master Plan has not produced an accurate noise forecast. There would be lots more aircraft noise in 2029 than they have admitted. Mistakes in the airport’s noise forecast include the day and night numbers of big jets and there will only be small gains from new aircraft. The flight paths used in the 2029 forecast differ considerably from the actual 2007 flight paths and the Long Term Operating Plan.

These mistakes and more are detailed in the government’s Sydney Airport Community Forum submission to the Draft Master Plan. Sydney Airport has already passed its environmental capacity and we must stop it from increasing the noise and pollution it dumps on our homes.

Jetstar fined $148,500 for breaking Sydney Airport curfew

The Qantas cheap flights airline Jetstar has been fined $148,500 for taking off after the 11pm curfew on 3 December last year. The Airbus A330 jet took off for Bali at 11.28 pm even though it had been refused a dispensation to operate during the curfew quiet period. The maximum fine for breaking the curfew is $550,000.

Jetstar has appealed against the size of the fine, but had pleaded guilty to breaking the curfew. Jetstar said they had kept passengers waiting for eight hours because of mechanical problems with the A330 and had nowhere to put them up in Sydney for the night. They also wanted the penalty reduced because they had taken off over Botany Bay, ignoring the fact that homes nearest the airport are affected by such flights.

A model of hell

19 April Sunday was a model of hell that awaits the Inner West in a few years: the East-West runway closed due to construction work and ALL the landings were going through the north. It started at 6am sharp and went on non-stop until the night with 20 landings per hour in average (around 20 of them between 6 and 7am) and roaring 40 landings per hour at the peak time around 6pm.

You wanted to sleep in on your hard-earned Sunday? To have a quiet time with a book on your balcony? In this area, you are not entitled the privilege of an 8-hour night sleep or quality time at home due to the insatiable greed of the airport and decades of chronic inaction and useless rhetoric of the federal government.

From an Inner West resident

What Does an Amsterdam Airline Crash have in common with Sydney

Remember an airline crash with the loss of 9 lives in Amsterdam early this year?
On 25 February, Turkish Airlines Flight TK1951 crashed 1.5 kilometres short of the main runway in Amsterdam. If this had happened in Sydney there would have been a major loss of life and property.

At the estimated Sydney Airport crash site - on approach from the north for the main North/South runway - homes, light industries and the major southern railway line could have been destroyed, depending on ignition of fuel and other combustibles in the crash zone. The loss of life would have included aircraft passengers and crew as well as people on any trains or cars/ buses/ trucks that could have been involved.

By comparison to our worst airline disasters of the past in (not including military aircraft):
2005 = 9 wide body jet crashes with major loss of life
2002 = 10 wide body jet crashes with major loss of life

After just seven months in 2009 there have been nine catastrophic crashes of wide body jets with significant loss of life! And this area’s representative in federal parliament approved an increase to air traffic over Sydney!

The last assessment of crash risk was done in 1990 and found the area bounded by Rockdale, Leichhardt and Kingsford would be above the guidelines for NSW (risk of death to the public off site from an industrial accident) by 2010. Sydenham was estimated to be 100 times that level and Stanmore ten times.

NAN member told “go back to Mt Isa”

From a NAN member: After the Macquarie Airports AGM, up came one of the Macquarie fellows and asked if I had any questions. I said ’not a question but a comment’. I then said that the parking charges were prohibitive, etc. and the airport shouldn’t be in the middle of the city as it was a danger in many ways. He told me he once lived in Lilyfield with his son and he knew about the noise but it was OK and that he now lived in the Blue Mountains. I told him I was from Mt. Isa and since the sale of Sydney Airport regional airports were suffering. He asked me if I was a shareholder and for simplicity’s sake I said yes. He asked me why and I said ’so I could see what was going on’. He then told me he couldn’t do anything for me and I should go back to Mt. Isa, and walked off. Refreshing.

Volume 14, Issue 1, March 2009

Airport capacity heading for a brick wall

The Sydney Airport Master Plan is a plan for 20 years with passenger growth projections of 4.2%. Airbus and Boeing predict 4.9% which is a significant further increase in passenger and flight demand over the period of the plan.

Therefore, how long will Sydney Airport capacity last? Heathrow has a 24 hour operation, a larger site, with 5 other airports in the London region and is at full capacity at 67 million passengers per annum. In comparison, Sydney airport is forecasting 79 million passengers per annum, but with an 80 movements per hour cap and a curfew. In summary, Sydney Airport’s operational capacity forecast cannot be achieved.

The likely impact of under-estimation of passenger numbers and operational constraints above is that capacity will not last 20 years and could be a little as 10 years. Our view is that this will result in pressure on the curfew, cap and noise sharing arrangements to provide more capacity on Sydney Airport in around 10 years.

In the National Aviation Policy Green Paper released 2 December 2008, the NSW Government and some airlines are expressing capacity concerns, commenting that Sydney Airport was already full at peak times. Sydney Airport capacity is heading for a brick wall.

New Master Plan another failure

Sydney Airport’s 2029 Master Plan fails to give Sydney people the quiet, clean air and safe suburbs we deserve. It also fails to provide us an adequate airport for Sydney’s needs.

Russell Balding, the Sydney Airport CEO claims that aircraft noise will fall from 2024 to 2029(“Flights through Sydney tipped to rise by nearly half”, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 September.) This is fifteen years from now. We can’t wait that long and it would still be worse than today’s noise.

Noise maps released with the plan show a massive increase in noise from today’s levels, especially north and north-west of the airport. They must use a comparison with the most recent results, the actual 2007 aircraft noise, not the 2024 prediction.

Croydon, Hunters Hill, Annandale, Rosebery, Botany would all have big increases. All the suburbs closer to the airport will experience more and bigger aircraft overhead. Suburbs out to Macquarie Park, North Ryde and Rydalmere would all experience more than 10 flights a day (average) above 70 decibels (dBA) for the first time.

The plan for 427,400 flights per year would mean that the current noise sharing will be impossible from 6.45 am until 10.30 at night. Once the traffic gets over 45 movements per hour, the East West Runway closes and all traffic is on the parallel North South Runways. More passengers per plane will result in larger, noisier aircraft.

Air pollution will continue to rise. Greenhouse gas production is made worse by the inefficient layout of the airport, with long taxi times to the third runway. The airport is using a new method of calculating air pollution and does not compare the predicted pollution with what they are dumping on us today.

As in the last Master Plan, the airport has not bothered to assess the risk to the public from this massive increase in aircraft numbers. No Aircraft Noise analysis has found that the airport is underestimating future growth in order to protect their monopoly position at Mascot.

Sydney Airport cannot be allowed to make Sydney life a miserable and polluted hell. We must plan a future with peace and quiet, clean, fresh air and safety for our suburbs. You can find the master plan on the airport’s web site under Corporate Information.

Green Paper’s grim future

The Federal Government’s Aviation Green Paper does not acknowledge that Sydney Airport is way over the Australian Standards for aircraft noise affecting buildings and it is forecast to get worse. Transport Minister Albanese’s foreward only mentions the environment once.

The Green Paper does not call for a reduction in noise for people affected by Sydney Airport, unlike Albanese’s maiden speech to Parliament where he called for less flights over the inner west. Then he wanted to be a warrior, now he is a bureaucrat.

The Green Paper dumps the responsibility to avoid land use conflict on the community – to avoid new noise sensitive developments along flight paths, but allows the airport to spread noise over noise sensitive people.

Noise relief is limited to maintaining the existing curfew, cap and noise sharing. In other words, it allows the situation to constantly get worse as the size and number of jets increases.

After Sydney Airport’s 2009 Master Plan has been considered, the Government will “initiate a process to identify additional capacity for the Sydney Region, consistent with the Government’s support for a second airport for Sydney”

They have no intention to do other than provide additional capacity. They don’t even pretend that a second airport would reduce noise in the city. Amazingly, the Green Paper was reported by some media as though Albanese was on a hunt for a second airport site.

This is weak, weak, weak; we know what we want and this Green Paper fails utterly. A White Paper will be produced later this year.

Editorial: Labor’s game of let’s pretend

Let’s pretend Labor will build a second airport. Let’s pretend that would help lower noise in the city. Labor policy is only to “find a site” for a second Sydney airport.

Transport Minister Albanese is on a go slow – one year for a green paper, then wait for the airport’s Master Plan, then a white paper, then an election, wait again, a whole parliament will go by with no real progress.

Two years after Hawke took office, a site selection process involving 10 sites, and an EIS on Badgerys and Wilton, the 2 most promising second airport sites, had been completed. Transport Minister Peter Morris had been keen to build a second airport, but the industry wanted to expand Mascot, so Labor built the third runway instead.

The problem with second airports is that they are used to maximize capacity at the main airport. Heathrow continues to expand despite secondary airports at Gatwick, Stanstead, Luton and London City. A second airport is just for smaller aircraft and it leaves us with the big, noisy jets and an ever lengthening peak hour.

Labor hopes to “manage” the noise problem – like the Liberals they will fiddle with flight paths, have a “community” consultative committee and in addition hold out the hope of a second airport.

We should demand a replacement airport every time they promise a second airport. We can point out the failings and inefficiency of Mascot as well. A replacement airport will get us peace in the city and a modern, efficient and low greenhouse gas generating airport for the future.

Allan Rees

Mobile machines used on East West runway

Every time NAN has checked out the work on the East West runway, mobile cranes, diggers and pile drivers have been used. The airport had claimed they were unable to move machinery off the site to allow the runway to be returned to use for noise relief north of the airport. Sydney Airport is extending the East West Runway to create a longer safety run off area. NAN asked that the work be done at night so that the runway could be used each day to spread the noise.

The airport’s bluff was called on the excuse that they couldn’t work at night when they agreed to the condition imposed by Transport Minister Albanese that they would work up to 22 hours per day.

Sydney Airport has two more excuses for not operating the runway during normal hours. They claim that pilots don’t want to fly over a big hole in the ground that is beyond the safety run off zone. In addition, large structures above ground level would interfere with flights. So far, half way into the work, no above ground structures have been seen.

Cronies rotated at “Community” forum

Former Labor Mayor Vic Smith has been replaced as chair of the Sydney Airport “Community” Forum by former Labor Mayor Barry Cotter. Both were appointed to the committee by Transport Minister Albanese to give Labor a majority over Liberal, Green and independent representatives.
Albanese expressed surprise that the appointment of Cotter would be seen as cronyism. In his media release, Albanese said “While recognising the importance of the Airport to the NSW and national economies, Mr Cotter has consistently championed the need for genuine dialogue between its operators and local residents.”
We don’t want a “genuine dialogue” with the airport, we want the noise to end. We want the Australian Standards enforced on the aviation industry. They must be stopped from destroying our living conditions. Cotter’s role is to protect Labor and Albanese and minimise any embarrassment or pressure from SACF.