FAQs

As aircraft continue to be modernised they are less noisy and more environmentally efficient. This is partly because aircraft engines are quieter and more efficient, but also because many aircraft have on-board satellite navigation equipment which means they can fly more efficiently and make less noise. Aircraft with on-board satellite navigation can arrive at the airport on a pre-programmed track, land at a constant rate of descent, and use minimum or idle power. Departing aircraft with on-board satellite navigation can climb at a constant rate and reach their designated cruise altitude as quickly as possible. These changes in arrival and departure behaviours reduce the amount of noise aircraft make over communities and minimise environmental effects by reducing fuel burn.

Weather can have different effects on noise. Layers of cloud can reflect noise back towards the ground. Wind can either make noise dissipate or “blow” noise towards an area where it is not normally heard. Geographic features such as hills and forests can also affect the distribution of noise. Hills can reflect noise and forests can absorb it.

The Sunshine Coast Airport has Noise Abatement Procedures (NAPs) which are published for use by pilots and air traffic controllers. NAPs are designed to reduce the impact of aircraft noise on the community. They include procedures for runway use and flight paths to reduce flights over residential areas, as well as the designation of noise abatement areas. 

Sunshine Coast Airport also has a Fly Neighbourly Policy which is available on the airport website at https://www.sunshinecoastairport.com.au/corporate/community/noise/.

A number of organisations are responsible for aircraft noise management. The Australian government is responsible for overall policy and legislation. Airservices is responsible for flight paths, providing noise information and managing complaints. Aircraft operators are responsible for ensuring their aircraft are compliant with noise standards and implementing noise abatement principles. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority certifies aircraft that meet noise standards. Airports manage local community engagement and develop noise management plans, if required. State and local governments manage land-use planning around airports.

Noise monitoring is not conducted to determine whether there is compliance with particular noise standards or regulations. This is because there are no regulations specifying maximum noise levels for aircraft flying over residential areas. 

Rather, aircraft operating in Australia are required to meet noise standards imposed through the Air Navigation (Aircraft Noise) Regulations 2018. These regulations stipulate compliance with international noise standards that apply to the design and production of aircraft and specify the amount of noise that may be emitted by an aircraft type/model. Aircraft that do not meet these standards are prohibited from engaging in air navigation in Australia. 

The level of noise you hear from an aircraft during take-off, landing and during flight can vary. Aircraft noise is influenced by a number of different factors, including: 

• The weather, including season, wind and cloud cover
• The height of an aircraft
• Changes in engine thrust
• Type of aircraft 

People react differently to noise. What you hear can be influenced by many different factors including your surroundings and other activities happening in the background. 

Sound is usually measured in decibels (dB). Aircraft noise is measured in decibels adjusted (dB(A)) which means decibels have been adjusted to reflect the ear's response to different frequencies of sound.

As part of our Post Implementation Review, Airservices will investigate community proposals for potential noise improvements. This activity will be coordinated through the Sunshine Coast Community Aviation Forum.

Airservices communicates regularly with the Office of the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman (ANO) and welcomes the review. The review will be conducted independently by the ANO and this will continue in parallel with our flight path design and decision making processes.

Sunshine Coast Airport is working with airlines to re-introduce services and aircraft operations at Sunshine Coast Airport. You can access updates on flight scheduling through the SCA website here (external site).  

Airservices will conduct a Post Implementation Review (PIR) of the flight path change process to review our environmental impact assessment noise modelling. The disruptions to aviation operations due to COVID-19 will impact the timeline for the PIR.

CASA conducted flight validations to ensure procedures are safe and flyable on 17 March 2020.  

Light aircraft and helicopters will still continue to operate around the airport and may still be seen and heard by residents. With orientation of the runway being changed from Runway 18/36 to Runway 13/31, light aircraft and helicopters may fly over different areas as they approach to land on the new runway or on helipads at the airport. 

Once clear of the airport, they will continue to operate as they do now complying with the established rules of flight operations. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) sets the rules for operations and all pilots must comply with those rules. For instance, there are very specific rules relation to the minimum altitudes aircraft must be when flying over built up areas and that does not change with the airspace design being proposed for the new runway at Sunshine Coast Airport.

Airservices may show a range of heights on flight paths and above communities. This is because departing aircraft may take off at different altitudes due to variations in aircraft performance, aircraft weight (heavy aircraft climb slower than light aircraft), air temperature, wind direction and wind strength. For some departing flight paths there is minimum height so in these cases we only show the minimum. 

The proposed flight paths are presented as ‘flight path corridors’. The corridors contain the flight path track in the centre and an area either side of the track (usually 500 metres each side) where aircraft can be expected to operate. This is because aircraft performance can vary across aircraft types, operators and in different weather conditions so aircraft may not always been seen on the exact same line.

Airspace is the overall area in which aircraft fly while flight paths are the paths that aircraft are directed to fly on within the airspace. 

In Australia there are two types of airspace: controlled, and uncontrolled. Controlled airspace is actively monitored and managed by air traffic controllers. Uncontrolled airspace is not controlled by air traffic controllers. 

Flight paths must be contained within the controlled airspace. If we make changes to flight paths we may need to make airspace changes to ensure the flight paths remain within controlled airspace. This could include extending, reducing or modify the height and distance of controlled airspace. 

More information about how airspace works can be found on our website at http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aircraftnoise/aircraft-operations/how-airspace-works/

Rate of climb is the rate at which an aircraft climbs when departing. This is expressed in feet per minute. A normal rate of climb for a departing passenger carrying jet is around 2000-3000 feet/minute. The aviation industry uses feet to measure height and knots (nautical miles per hour) to measure speed, rather than following the metric system.

For safety reasons aircraft always try to take off and land into wind. Taking off into the wind assists the aircraft in generating lift and becoming airborne. Landing into the wind can help slow the aircraft down to land safely. 

There are limits to how much downwind an aircraft can accept. In Australia the Civil Aviation Safety Authority sets strict limits that pilots and air traffic controllers must follow.

With the rapid growth in air traffic and a resulting need to ensure our airspace is managed as safety and efficiently as possible, Australia is at the forefront of a navigation modernisation effort to transition pilots from using ground-based navigation aids to satellite as their primary means of navigation. 

Mandated by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) since 4 February 2016, all aircraft operating under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) are required to navigate primarily using satellite based means within Australian airspace. 

In accordance with the CASA mandate, Airservices is redesigning some of its landing approaches at airports around the country to ensure we continue to have the safest and most efficient air traffic management system possible, meeting the expectations of airspace users and the travelling public into the future. More information can be accessed on our website at: http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/projects/aircraft-navigation-modernisation-program/

Airservices have designed two satellite based navigation approaches, an area navigation approach (RNAV) and a required navigation performance approach (RNP-AR which is also called ‘Smart Tracking’). Having two approaches is a way to distribute where planes will fly, so that they do not all fly over the same communities. It also allows aircraft with newer technology to use a more precise approach. 

The RNP-AR approach is designed for modern aircraft with on board satellite navigation equipment. The RNP-AR approach means these aircraft can fly more efficiently and make less noise. Aircraft with on-board satellite navigation can arrive at the airport on a pre-programmed track, land at a constant rate of descent, and use minimum or idle power. Airservices expect that the RNP-AR approach will be used by a majority of aircraft. 

The RNAV approach is designed for aircraft that do not have the on board equipment to fly the RNP-AR approach. Airservices expect that the RNAV will be used less than the RNP-AR. 

Runways can be used in two opposite directions, and each direction is named with a two digit number based on the two different directions they face on a compass. 

For example, a runway which runs from due east to due west would be called Runway 09/27, as east is at 90 degrees on a compass and west is at 270 degrees. 

The new runway at Sunshine Coast is called Runway 13/31 because it runs between the northwest (at 310 degrees) and the southeast (at 130 degrees).

Airservices does not implement airport curfews. 

Curfews at federally leased airports are imposed by Federal legislation and regulated by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (through the Airports Act 1996). 

Operators of non-federally leased airports, including private airports, may limit operations during certain hours through different means. This could be through setting operating hours or through State legislation or Local Government approvals. 

We refer discussions on Airport curfews and the future airport growth to the Sunshine Coast Airport. 

The community consultation for the Sunshine Coast Proposed Airspace and Flight Paths for Runway 13/31 was open for six weeks from the 20 March and closed on the 30 April 2019. Submissions and/or feedback is no longer being accepted.

Six weeks is the standard period and appropriate practice for community consultation programs of this size and complexity.

Airservices provided notification for the consultation ‘drop-in sessions’ across a number of media channels, including broadcast, web, social and print, including the Sunshine Coast Daily (Saturday edition). All of these channels targeted the broader Sunshine Coast region.

• Airservices compiled all feedback from community across the Sunshine Coast received before and on the consultation close date (30 April 2019).
• Airservices checked submissions for duplicates because some community members submitted the same response through different channels. Therefore we only analysed ‘unique feedback’.
• If an individual submitted multiple items of feedback, as long as these were not exact duplicates, they were included in the analysis.
• Each submission was registered and the full content of the unique submission was analysed according to themes. As part of recognised engagement evaluation practice, the themes were shaped by the general topics and sentiment of the feedback and were not pre-determined by Airservices.
• Most community submissions contained feedback that covered a range of topics for consideration. The submissions were therefore analysed across the range of themes and, where appropriate, the elements of the flight path design that they related to. They were then allocated to themes that related specifically to those areas that could influence the proposed flight path design of the new Sunshine Coast Airport.
  
  
• The percentages provided in the Summary of Feedback – Part One report are not calculated using the number of submissions, but rather on the range of themes contained in the submissions.

As part of the 2019 consultation, we will not release submissions from individuals, petitions or community associations or advocacy groups on our Airservices website.

The Proposed Final Design and Consideration of Feedback report describes how community feedback was considered, and used to shape the final designs.  It describes how constraints, considerations and criteria was used to design and the decision making processes to develop the proposed final flight paths and the implementation strategy.  

Click here to read the Proposed Final Design and Consideration of Feedback report

The ‘consultation areas’ are those suburbs near or underneath proposed flight paths that have varied from the concept flight paths in the approved 2014 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), to deliver improved environmental outcomes for communities.

For more information on the EIS click here.  

The development of a new runway at Sunshine Coast Airport has been the initiative of Sunshine Coast Airport Expansion Project (SCAEP) team who are constructing the runway. The preliminary concepts for the flight paths were developed by a third party, as part of the associated Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) commissioned by the Sunshine Coast Council.

A TEIA is a standard component of Airservices internal flight path design process. In the case of the Sunshine Coast Airport Expansion Project (SCAEP) the purpose of the TEIA was to assess and confirm whether the environmental outcomes of the Airservices proposed flight path design was consistent with the findings of the approved Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The TEIA confirmed that the assessment outcomes were consistent with those of the EIS.

Engines powered by fossil fuels always produce emissions, including car and motorbike engines, boat engines and aircraft engines. To reduce aircraft emissions the aviation industry has committed to a range of strategies. More information about these strategies can be found on the Department of Infrastructure, Transport,Regional Development and Communications website at https://infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/environmental/emissions/index.aspx 

As part of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) air quality and greenhouse gas emissions were considered. The environmental impact statements and Coordinator-General’s findings are available online on Queensland’s Department of State Development website which can be accessed at http://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/assessments-andapprovals/sca-expansion-project-eis-documents.html

Release of fuel is a rarely-used emergency measure. If, shortly after take-off, an aircraft is forced to turn round and land again, it has to release fuel as it is not possible to land with full tanks for safety reasons. This is allowed only at a certain height and at a certain speed. 

Under the Air Navigation (Fuel Spillage) Regulations 1999, the operator of an aircraft within the Commonwealth’s jurisdiction must ensure that fuel is not released from an aircraft during flight unless it is:

• in an emergency over areas where it does not create a hazard to a person or property on the ground; or 
• according to a direction issued by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority under 150(2)(a) of the Civil Aviation Regulations 1988; or 
• according to a permission given by a person performing duty in Air Traffic Control. Modern aviation fuel comes in many varieties but all are derivatives of kerosene. 

According to scientific studies conducted by Canada’s National Research Council and documented in the publication For Greener Skies (2002), the kerosene involved evaporates into the air and poses no threat to the environment or to people on the ground.