Update 17

Noise Action Plan for Brisbane – 2023 summary and quarterly update #4

Welcome to the fourth quarterly update on the progress of the Noise Action Plan for Brisbane, which is also a summary of the first year of the program.

Over this last quarter we engaged with communities on Phase 3 options that focused on:

reducing the concentration of flight paths west of Brisbane Airport
reducing the impact of night-time operations.

We recorded 264 attendees at the six community drop-in sessions and four online sessions. Feedback closed on 10 December 2023 and we received 456 submissions.

We thank everyone who participated in this phase of engagement. We have commenced reviewing the submissions and will provide an update in the new year.

2023 summary

With 82 actions across 11 recommendations and four packages of work, the Noise Action Plan for Brisbane is a significant, complex program with many interdependencies.

In this first year of the program, we prioritised actions to:

Increase the use of Simultaneous Opposite Direction Runway Operations (SODPROPS). This is currently the priority operating mode at night, with both arrivals and departures over water.
Reduce the impact of SODPROPS operations on bayside communities to open up opportunities to expand SODPROPS use.
Reduce the impact of night-time operations on communities.
Reduce the concentration of flight paths over some locations.

It was also important to get the foundations of the Noise Action Plan for Brisbane program right, with appropriate governance, resourcing, reporting and benchmarking processes established. This included publishing the final Communications Approach, a review of reporting requirements, and establishment of an interactive, online baseline model to enable the comparison of proposed flight path options with current operations and with those from before the new runway.

In 2023, we implemented the following changes:

Permanent extension of SODPROPS operations to 8am on Saturday and Sunday mornings and from 8pm on Saturday evening.
Removal of the Noise Abatement Procedure that enables use of the new runway over land from 5am for non-jet departures.
Non-jet early turn from the legacy runway over land before 6am so that aircraft cross the industrial area adjoining Brisbane Airport and complete their climb over water.
Change of runway from the new to the legacy for over water departures to the west, to address an existing operational safety issue.

Due to the complexity of airspace design, our commitment to community engagement, and essential prioritisation of safety in the air, changes involving new flight paths or alterations to existing flight paths and procedures cannot be made in a short timeframe. Most changes will take 12-18 months to implement.

We recognise that these requirements are potentially of less importance to the community than having an immediate reduction in aircraft noise. However, changing flight paths is a safety-critical action that takes time and also requires detailed engagement where flight paths may shift.

Throughout 2023 we have engaged with communities on options addressing arrival and departure operations over different communities, as well as options to expand SODPROPS use. Future phases of the Noise Action Plan for Brisbane in 2024 will piece together some of these outcomes and will propose a more holistic operating environment.

We thank you for your extensive feedback this year and invite you to continue to work with us as we progress options from this year and present initial proposals for additional actions in 2024.

Further detail

We have made significant progress with Package 1 and Package 2 recommendations while also progressing several actions from Package 3.

Package 1 progress (Strong, transparent and representative governance)

This package is focused on the structures in place to support better engagement and decision making. Actions delivered include:

Brisbane Airport Airspace Community Airspace Advisory Board (AAB) established by the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
Program Management Office established
Technical Coordination Group established
Options Assessment Framework in development – this is being developed using independent third-party expertise based on research of international practice and is expected to be available for use in 2024
Think Research Ltd appointed as the independent technical advisor to provide independent review and input to our design activity
an appointment is nearing completion for an appropriately skilled and qualified consultant to deliver flight path and airspace design
Communications Approach finalised
review of current noise tool capability completed (Aircraft in Your Neighbourhood, WebTrak) with initial updates made to both, including expanded complaint reporting and improved operations coverage. Further improvements will continue.

Package 2 progress (Maximise flights over water)

This package is focused on maximising our capacity to operate SODPROPS while limiting impacts on bayside communities, as well as reducing the impact of night-time operations. Options were developed for:

SODPROPS departure flight paths to the south
over-water departure paths to the south for parallel runway operations
high-altitude routes to and from the Sunshine and Gold Coast airports that go through Brisbane airspace, restricting SODPROPS use
SODPROPS weather criteria
night-time arrival paths across the city
early morning non-jet operations.

Package 3 progress (Reduce the frequency and concentration of flights over communities)

This package is focused on reducing the impact of aircraft operations across greater Brisbane, including consideration of noise sharing and avoiding arrival and departure paths over the same communities. Options were developed for:

night-time departure path to the north-west including noise-sharing options
overwater departure paths to keep aircraft over water for longer, reducing impact on communities after they turn to travel over land
overnight arrivals over water to the new runway to take aircraft further away from the southern part of Bribie Island
jet aircraft over land departure early turn to the left from the legacy runway
new runway over water departure to address a safety issue, which also reduces overflight of Bribie Island
arrival routes from west of the airport to remove arriving traffic from communities also subjected to departing traffic
baseline model developed and released for community feedback.

Three phases of engagement were completed presenting a mix of actions from all three packages and extensive feedback was received. Our review of this feedback continues.

Phase 1 options have been assessed with two options implemented, four options will progress to preferred stage and four have been discarded. In addition, the noise improvement trial for weekend SODPROPS was made permanent, while the full-length departure trial was discontinued as no community noise benefit was identified.

Phase 2 options are in the final stages of assessment and the outcomes will be released in the new year.

Quarterly update on 2023 priority actions

Our progress against our 2023 priority actions is reported below:

Recommendation	Description	Proposed completion	Progress
1.1	Commence consulting with the Government-appointed independent airport community forum.	Q1	Complete Three AAB meetings attended and two out-of-session meetings held to review engagement materials.
1.1	Establish governance mechanisms including an assurance check by the Federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government.	Q1	Complete Airservices Australia’s governance mechanisms established. The Department to provide advice on assurance checks undertaken through the AAB.
1.2	Community engagement on proposed Communications Approach for delivery of changes in response to the PIR, including confirming operating principles.	Q1/Q2	Complete Draft Communications Approach engaged on, updated and released as final.
1.4	Increase public reporting and transparency of operations, including SODPROPS use, NAPs application, aircraft tracking and altitude, noise information and complaints.	Q1/Q2	Partially complete – progress continues Changes implemented to Aircraft In Your Neighbourhood to include complainant and complaint reporting. Changes made to WebTrak to reduce delay from 40 minutes to 10 minutes, extend coverage from 40km to 80km and to include weather data from Air Traffic Control systems rather than the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Work is continuing to enable automated reporting of SODPROPS use, NAPs and other operational information.
2.1	Developing options to increase use of over water departures during the day	Q2	Complete Options developed and presented for engagement. Selected Phase 1 options progressed to preferred stage. Phase 2 options being assessed.
2.2	Expand the use of SODPROPS mode by increasing capacity, enhancing decision-making criteria, and developing flight path changes for daytime operations.	Q4	Partially complete – progress continues Options developed and presented for engagement. Select Phase 1 options progressed to preferred stage. Phase 2 options being assessed. Further engagement required with other agencies to progress some options.
2.3	Develop proposals to increase height and over water operations for SODPROPS to reduce the impact on bayside communities.	Q2	Complete Options developed and presented for engagement. Select Phase 1 options progressed to preferred stage.
2.4	Develop proposals to reduce the impact of overnight operations.	Q1	Complete Options developed and presented for engagement. Select Phase 1 options progressed to preferred stage.
3.1	Develop baseline model for pre-NPR and current NPR operations.	Q1	Complete Desktop model developed and used to produce information materials presented across all three phases of engagement. Interactive online model released for community review in November 2023.
3.1	Develop proposals to reduce the impact of concentrated flight paths to the west of the airport.	Q3	Partially complete – progress continues Options developed and presented for departures and arrivals from the north-west. Further options under development.

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Update 17