Debrief

BNE Master Plan

Under the Brisbane airport’s new master plan, the parallel runway and other infrastructure upgrades have been approved, albeit with the odd twist in that the thorny curfew issue will be reviewed every five years. Obviously, those politicians who lobbied heavily and reportedly funded the previous curfew push can’t let go. Even if the airport only grows slowly once the parallel runway is completed, the nearby high density residential developments will bring thousands into direct ‘conflict’ with long established flight paths-some successfully designed to minimise noise. Current night routing rigidly observes noise abatement procedures, negating any need for a curfew.

Another of these planned skyscrapers has fallen over, but presumably could start off again later. The window to set the dual runway airport flightpaths has opened a little and now is the time to set them in concrete. If the later high rise dwellers want a curfew, too bad – the airport got in first.

While a host of ‘experts’ laud high density living, others warn it will worsen pollution and affect climate change. Given that aviation seems to contribute just 3.0-3.5 per cent to the critical upper air emissions, perhaps those attacking aviation’s environmental credentials might have reason to look at the high rise phenomenon.

Idiots and Lazy people

Authorities are now catching more laser shiners, including one alleged offender charged who is amazingly listed as an ‘aviation trainee’, so perhaps this insane action will die out. But the high nuisance and cost of the myriad of discarded old style locator beacons that go off is almost a weekly phenomenon, often from beacons dumped in council tips over weekends. While tracing ownership is near impossible, that lazy unthinking idiots continue this dumping when a least Battery World will accept old beacons for disposal, defies belief.

Airservices Australia and AUSSAR have to accept such activations as real until eliminated, and when dumps can’t be accessed a beacon radiating for a couple of days can compromise a real activation on 121.5mHz, monitored by most two VHF aircraft and all internationals.

Thinner services fight back.

With only around 6000 passengers each year, Inverell has become the 44th town to lose services to Sydney (including nine interstate towns), although the alternative of flying from Armidale gives four hours longer in Sydney.

Aeropelican’s Jetstream service Narrabri-Sydney at similar frequency to the former Qantaslink services, appears just viable even though passanger numbers are slightly lower than when QantasLink cancelled its services. Interestingly, there is no evidence of QantasLink’s Moree services snaring Narrabri passengers. The new Aeropelican Mudgee service will give over eight hours in Sydney, but will need to grow above the historic 9-10,000 passengers per annum level to succeed.

Brindabella’s Tamworth-Brisbane service (omitting Armidale) has continued since inception. All these resurrected routes are serviced by Metros or Jetstreams, not by larger Dash 8s or Saabs. The new operators mostly reverse the long standing practices of QantasLink, Rex and their predecessors of overnighting aircraft at regional ports which gives maximum time in the capitals. This is costly and more liable to crew hours induced delays, but caters for the same day return traffic to the city, andgenerally higher loads. Some have negotiated very favourable airport charges but there doesn’t seem much room to further cut costs. If the service isn’t profitable it will go and it is hard to see anyone else with 9-19 seaters trying again.