Ballina Airport - Introduction of controlled airspace

Statement of Need

Airspace around the Ballina Byron Gateway Airport will be managed by air traffic controllers from 2025 to safely accommodate the continued growth of air traffic in the region.

The decision to enhance air traffic services at Ballina Airport resulted from the 2022 Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Airspace Review of Ballina, which included extensive feedback from industry. Currently uncontrolled airspace where pilots self-separate, the change to controlled airspace follows a direction from CASA for Airservices Australia to establish controlled airspace from 2025.

This initiative is in line with Airservices’ airspace modernisation program, which is enhancing the safety and efficiency of Australia’s airspace at major regional airports and improving accessibility to these locations for the aviation industry.

The new air traffic services will result in changes to both airspace and flight paths, and subsequently what the community may notice from the ground. Airservices will engage with community and industry stakeholders on the proposed flight path design options. CASA is leading industry engagement on the airspace change process and further information can be found via CASA’s consultation hub.

We’ve produced a video for you explaining the changes.

Statement of Need

Airspace around the Ballina Byron Gateway Airport will be managed by air traffic controllers from 2025 to safely accommodate the continued growth of air traffic in the region.

The decision to enhance air traffic services at Ballina Airport resulted from the 2022 Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Airspace Review of Ballina, which included extensive feedback from industry. Currently uncontrolled airspace where pilots self-separate, the change to controlled airspace follows a direction from CASA for Airservices Australia to establish controlled airspace from 2025.

This initiative is in line with Airservices’ airspace modernisation program, which is enhancing the safety and efficiency of Australia’s airspace at major regional airports and improving accessibility to these locations for the aviation industry.

The new air traffic services will result in changes to both airspace and flight paths, and subsequently what the community may notice from the ground. Airservices will engage with community and industry stakeholders on the proposed flight path design options. CASA is leading industry engagement on the airspace change process and further information can be found via CASA’s consultation hub.

We’ve produced a video for you explaining the changes.

Maps - new flight paths - preliminary design (consultation concluded)

3 months

This map shows the preliminary design that was engaged on from July to September 2024. Preferred flight paths will be released in November 2024.

Search an address and zoom in to see its location in relation to the proposed flight paths.

Arrivals = yellow, departures = purple. The white line is for SID 1 comparison purposes and shows the current departure path. 

Each flight path is presented as a shaded 2km wide corridor, which is the range in which aircraft will generally operate (1km either side of the notional centreline).

Noise contours have been included for each flight path. These contours represent single aircraft event, maximum noise level (LAMax) contours – i.e. the maximum noise level expected during a single aircraft operation over a location. The inner most pink shaded area close to the runway represents locations where noise may be 70 decibels or higher, the longer green shaded area represents locations where the noise may be 60 decibels or higher, and the wide outer blue shaded area represents locations where noise may be 42 decibels or higher (i.e. low, but potentially noticeable).

Please read our Flight Paths factsheet for further detail about each of the flight paths.

Comparison of new and existing flight paths

3 months

This is a zoomable version of the comparison map on Page 11 of our New Flight Paths factsheet. Please allow some time for the map to load.

It shows the proposed Standard Instrument Departure (SID) and Standard Instrument  Arrival (STAR) flight paths overlaid onto actual flight tracks from October to December 2023. This map is for visual comparison purposes only and we are showing tracks over a three month period to ensure map visibility. 

Search an address on the top right of the map and zoom in to see its location in relation to the flight paths.

Purple lines = SIDs, yellow lines = STARs. Blue lines = arrivals tracks, pink lines = departure tracks. Thicker blue and pink lines indicate more concentrated operations.

Note the flight tracks shown are for aircraft flying according to Instrument Flight Rules (mainly commercial passenger aircraft), as these are the types of flights that will be utilising the proposed SIDs and STARs. Smaller training aircraft, recreational aircraft and helicopters will not use these flight paths and will continue to operate in a similar manner to how they do today. 


Page last updated: 04 Nov 2024, 02:06 PM