Brisbane Airport noise only going to get worse as flights increase

Brisbane residents under airport flight paths have been dealt another crushing blow, with the noise situation to worsen even further.

Dozens of new flights could soon take off over Brisbane skies every day, even as fed-up locals bombard the national aviation watchdog with noise complaints.

Property prices of homes under Brisbane Airport flight paths have dropped as much as 10 per cent since the long-awaited second runway opened last July, sparking an avalanche of noise complaints to Air Services Australia.

However, the tension is set to escalate with almost 200 extra takeoffs and landings earmarked for Brisbane once the coronavirus crisis eases.

Brisbane has been the subject of more aircraft noise complaints to ASA than any other airport in the country since July last year when the second runway opened.

But the number of flights currently catapulting across Brisbane skies is expected to be dwarfed by the number when airport traffic volumes return to normal.

While flights ground to a virtual halt at the height of the pandemic, the daily number of aircraft movements at Brisbane Airport is now just over 400.

Before the pandemic, the number was about 580 with projections of more than 600 a day once the second runway was fully-utilised.

A spokeswoman for Brisbane Airport said it could take several years to return to that level, though there had been significant recovery in terms of increased flight frequency in recent months.

More than 1000 complaints were made to Air Services Australia alone from July 12 to December 31 last year, with seven inner-city suburbs recording more than 50 complaints each.

Brisbane Airport Corporation said it had received 225 “submissions’’ from 99 people last month, down from March (343 from 132 people).’’

The Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, who is currently holding a public inquiry into the noise issue and new flight paths, has also logged 95 complaints by Brisbane residents between October and December 2020 – more than all other Australian airports combined.

And a community lobby group set up to tackle the issue, the Brisbane Flight Path Community Alliance, received 2200 complaints to a survey it distributed over the Christmas holidays.

“That’s just households. There are usually at least two people per household so the number of individual complaints would be easily twice that,’’ alliance chair David Diamond said.

BAC said while it was now not responsible for complaints, it took calls and emails because it wanted to “do the right thing’’ and listen to the public and answer their questions.

Mr Diamond predicted the number of complaints would escalate dramatically once the impact of COVID passed.

“A lot of days we’re only getting 60 to 70 flights. Once you start getting 150 flights a day, which is BAC’s forecast, complaints will increase significantly.’’

The Australian Federation of Air Pilots dismissed claims by federal Brisbane MP Trevor Evans that “rat running’’ by pilots was partly to blame for the level of disturbance plaguing residents.

AFAP safety and technical manager, Marcus Diamond, a former pilot based in Brisbane for many years, said the skies above the city were deemed Class C airspace and as such radar identified and very tightly controlled.

It was rare for a pilot to ask for a specific approach path.