Airport safeguarding

The NASF is a national land use planning framework that aims to minimise aircraft noise-sensitive developments near airports, as well as improve safety outcomes by ensuring aviation safety requirements are recognised in land use planning decisions.

Under the NASF framework there are currently six guidelines (with two new guidelines under development) which provide comprehensive information on airport safeguarding matters. To date the adoption and implementation of the NASF guidelines by state and territory governments has been slow and inconsistent. Despite being agreed to by all jurisdictions almost four years ago, there has been little progress in fully implementing the NASF into state planning schemes.

Without implementation in the jurisdictions, there is no regulatory requirement for state and local government planning authorities to give consideration or adhere to the NASF guidelines. As a result, we are now seeing a growing number of inappropriate land use development proposals being approved in areas around airports. These vary from encroaching residential developments that may be subject to unnecessary aircraft noise exposure, through to inner city sky rise developments that infringe critical airspace surfaces and impact the safe operations of aircraft arriving and departing the airport.

In a bid to continue creating greater awareness around the importance of airport safeguarding, the AAA recently exhibited at the Planning Institute of Australia Congress 2016 in Brisbane. The objective was to engage with planning professionals, as well as state and local government planning authorities, to reinforce the importance of appropriate land use planning decisions that will not adversely impact airport operations or the local community. In conjunction with this exhibition, the AAA has also released a new Briefing Note on Airspace Protection.

This document builds on our previously released Airport Practice Note – Planning Around Airports by exploring airspace protection in greater detail. Protection of airspace surrounding an airport is as critical to the maintenance of safety and efficiency of an airport as the safe design and operation of on-ground infrastructure such as runways, taxiways, terminals and navigational aids. However, while ground infrastructure deficiencies can be subsequently modified, once airspace surrounding an airport is lost it is gone forever and limits are placed on future airport growth.

Appropriate airspace protection ensures that the safety, efficiency and regularity of existing and future operations are sustained. For these reasons an airport’s airspace must be regarded as an integral part of the airport.

Land use planning, development assessment and approval procedures need to take account of these airspace requirements, and this applies equally to the airport land as well as the land around the airport.

Certain developments and structures in the vicinity of an airport, whether they are natural features or man-made, may limit the scope of the airport’s existing and future operations. While it is widely appreciated that tall structures and aircraft operations are basically incompatible, it is true not only on immediate approaches and takeoff paths close to the airport, but also further afield.

High terrain, high-rise buildings, stack efflux, mechanical turbulence, windshear and antenna structures – remote from the airport – may constitute critical obstructions in the design of instrument flight procedures and may impose limits on the range of weather conditions in which aircraft operations can take place. This could be because of the height of the structure, but also may relate to its lighting configuration or in the case of a stack or chimney – its efflux characteristics.

The impacts of any one obstacle may be relatively minor, but together a number of obstacles, which may be proliferated due to shielding principles, may seriously limit runway utilisation, increase environmental impacts, cause airspace congestion and reduce the effective handling capacity of the airport. From an airline perspective the proliferation of obstacles surrounding airports can bring about payload restrictions and challenge the development of engine-out procedures. This can ultimately impact on the viability of routes and threaten the commercial viability of some operations.

Such impacts can have significant economic consequences to the local or regional economies that an airport supports.

The AAA has been taking an active role in informing industry and government stakeholders of the importance of airport safeguarding, with our participation in the recent PIA Congress just the latest in a series of engagement and advocacy activities taking place over recent years. As we mark four years since the states and territories agreed to the NASF, the AAA will be making it a priority to urge each jurisdiction to fully implement the NASF guidelines into their planning regimes. It is essential that we not only protect the future of airports and aviation development but ensure that local communities are not adversely impacted by poor land use planning decisions.