We have received a number of queries from communities south of the airport, including Buddina and Point Cartwright, that have been requesting the flight paths be amended to follow this procedure:
“At the earliest of 500 feet or departure end of runway turn left and track 100 degrees, at 8 DME SU intercept outbound track (track direct Moolo)”.
This procedure is not possible to implement according to international design standards:
- As some aircraft can still be only at 16 feet at the departure end of a runway, and a turn left at that stage would not provide minimum obstacle clearance and would be unsafe; and
- if an aircraft was at 500 feet and still above the runway, a turn left would expose a large area of residential communities to direct overflight.
Given the range of aircraft type and operations at Sunshine Coast Airport, that would result in a large splay of where aircraft might go, and would spread the impact of aircraft operations and noise over communities.
Procedures require that aircraft can only turn after reaching 500 feet, or the departure end of the runway – whichever is the latter.
The Airservices design for the Runway 13 departure is safe, compliant and correct, and minimises the effect of aircraft operations on the community.
Airservices has submitted the Airspace Change Proposal (ACP) to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Office of Airspace Regulation (OAR) to support the Sunshine Coast’s Airport's new runway.
Proposed changes to the Australian airspace architecture are managed through the CASA airspace change process, and are legislated under the Airspace Regulations 2007.
CASA will review the Sunshine Coast ACP to ensure it includes airspace that is needed to contain flight paths in controlled airspace, that it meets International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Standards and Recommended Practices, and incorporates international best practice that benefit the Australian Airspace System, wherever practicable.
When assessing the ACP, CASA will use the following criteria:
- Safety
- Protection of the environment
- Efficient use of airspace
- Equitable access
- National security
- Current and future needs of the Australian aviation industry
- Advances in technology
(Source: https://www.casa.gov.au/sites/default/files/arasmm.pdf)
Airservices expects a decision from CASA regarding the submission later in 2019 and we will notify the community once we are advised.
We would like to thank the Sunshine Coast community for submitting queries on the Sunshine Coast Airspace and Flight Path Changes and Consideration and Feedback Report.
During the 10 day query period, we received a total of 2,400 visits to our Engage Airservices engagement platform. We also had 119 queries and complaints submitted and our documents were downloaded 1,670 times.
We have received a number of queries regarding flight paths, curfew and consultation, from communities south of the airport including Buddina and Point Cartwright.
Consultation on the proposed flight path designs concluded on 30 April 2019. Community feedback was analysed and alternative submissions considered. The Proposed Final Design and Consideration of Feedback report describes this process and the outcomes.
We have recently received a number of requests from the community asking for the flight paths to be altered and for Airservices to relocate the tracking waypoints to the south east, known as ITIDE and MOOLO further over water to the north.
As consultation has concluded these suggestions will not be analysed at this time.
As part of our process, we may include them in the register of alternatives, if they meet minimum safety and operational feasibility requirements, will investigate them for possible future noise improvement outcomes.
Flight Paths
The communities of Buddina, including Point Cartwright, will no longer be directly overflown by jet operations when the new runway (Runway 13/31) operations commence.
Instead the flight paths will take aircraft over the water for both departures and arrivals – with the arrival flight path now approximately 2 km to the east of the coastline.
However these communities will continue to experience some aircraft operations, including noticing aircraft off the coast and experiencing some aircraft noise events, (between 5-10 noise events per day) at or below 60 decibels (N60). This will vary due to the runway operation used on the particular day and is slightly different across summer and winter.
Some community members will experience the effect of aircraft operations associated with departures off Runway 13 (approximately 77% of the time, due to prevailing winds), and arrivals to Runway 31 (approximately 23% of the time due to prevailing winds).
A graphic representation of this information can be found in Runway 13 Departures - Inner South Communities
A graphic representation of this information can be found in Runway 31 Arrivals - Inner South Communities
The Sunshine Coast Proposed Final Design and Consideration of Feedback has been released.
This report provides a summary of the Sunshine Coast Airspace and Flight Path Changes, presents the proposed final design, and describes how community feedback has been considered, and used to shape, these designs.
If you have a query regarding information in the report please submit it by 5pm Friday 26 July 2019 through our 'Have a query or complaint?' form.
Please note as consultation on this proposed flight path change is closed we are no longer accepting feedback on the proposed final design.
We have also released Community Specific Fact Sheets and Runway Operation Infographic Posters which can be accessed under the resources tab.
PIR report
Sunshine Coast community workshop (15/10/2022) presentation (2.78 MB) (pdf)
Video recording of the Webex meeting on Noise Modelling, Noise Monitoring and Noise Abatement Procedures.
