The talk is not yet over

“The government has confirmed that the site for Western Sydney’s new airport will be Badgerys Creek,” Abbott, then as Prime Minister, announced in April 2014.

“For more than 50 years governments have talked about a second airport for Sydney. The talk is over. The final decision has been made. ” But unfortunately, the talk is far from over. It does look like the selection of Badgerys Creek as the site of the new Sydney West Airport is settled, but rolling forward not quite three years from Abbott’s original pledge to another federal election and, inevitably, the planned new airport is once again a political football, long before the bulldozers have been sent in.

First there was the Labor Party’s plan to hobble the new airport’s night-time capacity due to a “no fly zone” which would require flightpaths for all takeoffs and landings between 2300 and 0600 to be in a south-west direction to avoid residential areas.

That seems a plan for Labor to have its second Sydney airport cake, and to eat it: “This will ensure Western Sydney benefits from the economic boost Sydney’s second airport will deliver – including thousands of jobs – while communities aren’t disturbed by night-time aircraft noise,” Opposition leader Bill Shorten and Opposition transport spokesperson Anthony Albanese said in a joint statement in late April.

But it will also have the practical effect of limiting the movement rate at the airport to just three or four an hour – hardly the 24-hour world airport Sydney is crying out for.

Admittedly, few passengers want to depart or arrive at an airport at three in the morning, but you only have to look south to curfew-free Melbourne Airport to see how busy a second Sydney Airport could be in the late hours – today Melbourne already has three or four international movements an hour between 11pm and 3am.

Then there is the announcement by Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government Paul Fletcher that the new airport’s airspace design would now not feature a ‘point merge’.

The intent is not to have a single merge point for flights approaching Badgerys for a landing to the north-east over the Blue Mountains community of Blaxland – even though the point merge would be at 7,000ft.

“We’ve received community feedback that the flightpaths should be spread more fairly and shared across the communities around Western Sydney Airport,” Fletcher said in early May.

Did anyone else reading that have flashbacks to the mid-1990s debate about “sharing” aircraft noise following the opening of Sydney Airport’s parallel runway? “As well as giving local residents access to thousands of jobs in their local area, Western Sydney Airport will boost local tourism by bringing many more domestic and international visitors to the area, and offer more convenient air travel to the millions of people living in Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains,” Fletcher said in a statement.

“But it is very important that the new airport operates in a way which addresses concerns about flightpaths and aircraft noise so as to meet the expectations of the community. ” What was that about having your cake and eating it? I lack the airspace design knowledge to comment on the operational impact of dropping a ‘point merge’ – and indeed modern technologies like RNP approaches should mean flightpaths can be spread more “fairly” without having too big an impact on movement rates.

But it’s clear the political tinkering in the operations of the new airport is well underway.

It’s naive to suggest that a second Sydney Airport could be built without political compromises. Especially as there is no little irony that the need for the new airport is in part due to politically-inspired constraints – the movement cap and curfew – placed on the current Sydney Airport.

But just how many election cycles will the new airport have to survive before it even receives its first commercial flight, some time mid to late next decade?

That seems a plan for Labor to have its second Sydney airport cake, and to eat it.