A Brisbane curfew calamity

The potential harm of political expediency

A curfew threat looms for Brisbane Airport despite a lack of any public call for one and few serious complaints about noise, largely the result of efficient and rigid night-time noise abatement procedures.

As just one example of how these noise procedures work, jets arriving at night from, say, Perth track to Amberley just 26nm from Brisbane Airport, are vectored onto a long, wide right downwind for Runway 19, at 20nm north of Brisbane they turn 90 degrees over the bay, held above 5,000ft until over the water and then join the ILS at its outer joining point. This tracking takes arriving aircraft laterally clear of Brisbane suburbs and adds 35nm and 10 jet minutes to the inbound track.