Aircraft Noise Pollution

Australia’s corporatised air traffic management system has failed.

Chronic air traffic controller shortages, repeated aircraft-noise failures and a terrifying cluster of recent safety incidents show that the current Airservices Australia model is not working. It is time for the Commonwealth to take direct responsibility.

Ending the corporatised Airservices model would:

put safety and adequate air traffic control staffing ahead of commercial imperatives;

make aircraft-noise management and community protection directly accountable to the Australian Government; and

end the cycle of inquiries, failed consultations and promises of reform while the same problems continue.

Take action

Tell Minister King to end the failed Airservices model

Send a message to Federal Transport Minister Catherine King calling on the Australian Government to end Airservices Australia’s corporatised model and return these essential national functions to a directly accountable Commonwealth public-service framework.

Please add something of your own if you can. If you have experienced aircraft noise, flight-path changes or aviation disruption, tell the Minister what that has meant for you. You can also simply explain why you believe an essential national safety service should be properly staffed and publicly accountable.

Australia’s corporatised air traffic management system has failed.

Chronic air traffic controller shortages, repeated aircraft-noise failures and a terrifying cluster of recent safety incidents show that the current Airservices Australia model is not working. It is time for the Commonwealth to take direct responsibility.

Ending the corporatised Airservices model would:

put safety and adequate air traffic control staffing ahead of commercial imperatives;

make aircraft-noise management and community protection directly accountable to the Australian Government; and

end the cycle of inquiries, failed consultations and promises of reform while the same problems continue.

Take action

Tell Minister King to end the failed Airservices model

Send a message to Federal Transport Minister Catherine King calling on the Australian Government to end Airservices Australia’s corporatised model and return these essential national functions to a directly accountable Commonwealth public-service framework.

Please add something of your own if you can. If you have experienced aircraft noise, flight-path changes or aviation disruption, tell the Minister what that has meant for you. You can also simply explain why you believe an essential national safety service should be properly staffed and publicly accountable.

End the Failed Airservices Australia Corporate Model

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Dear Minister King,

Airservices Australia’s corporatised model has failed.

It has failed communities subjected to concentrated and poorly managed aircraft noise. It has failed to maintain sufficient air traffic control staffing. It has repeatedly failed to implement its own noise-abatement procedures. And Australians are now seeing serious operational incidents occurring against the backdrop of a staffing crisis that has been allowed to persist for years.

The Commonwealth must stop tinkering with this model and end it.

Decades of parliamentary inquiries, independent reviews and affected communities have documented the same problems.

The 2010 Senate inquiry into Airservices’ management of aircraft noise found ineffective community engagement and a serious loss of public confidence. The Senate inquiry into the performance of Airservices Australia, conducted through multiple hearings between 2014 and 2018 and reporting in 2019, examined profound concerns about its management, air traffic control operations, restructuring and governance.

Then came the 2024 Senate inquiry into the Impact and Mitigation of Aircraft Noise. Again, Parliament heard evidence of communities carrying unreasonable noise burdens and of an organisation failing to adequately respond. Critically, the Committee found that Airservices’ chronic staffing shortages were preventing noise-mitigation procedures, runway modes and other noise-sharing arrangements from being properly implemented. It recommended urgent action to ensure Airservices had enough staff to actually deliver them.

These governance failures affect real communities.

Residents in Brisbane have endured years of excessive aircraft noise from failures in the design, assessment and consultation surrounding new parallel-runway flight paths. Communities in Hobart have fought prolonged battles over flight-path changes. Residents in Perth, the Gold Coast and Cairns have likewise confronted concentrated aircraft noise, inadequate transparency, failures of consultation and serious questions about whether Noise Abatement Procedures are being properly applied.

Western Sydney International Airport risks repeating many of the same failures. It will operate 24 hours a day without a curfew, exposing surrounding communities to overnight aircraft noise. The Brisbane case shows how this disastrous for communities.

Now the consequences of Airservices’ staffing problems extend far beyond noise.

Australia is facing a persistent shortage of air traffic controllers, recurring service restrictions and serious operational incidents. Recent runway-incursion and conflicting-movement events have rightly attracted ATSB investigation.

In less than a month, four separate safety incidents at Sydney Airport have attracted ATSB scrutiny, including two runway incursions involving conflicting ATC clearances, a Jetstar aircraft braking sharply to avoid a towed Qatar Airways 777, and a further conflicting ground movement involving two Qantas aircraft.

Four serious incidents in less than a month is not a warning sign. It is evidence that the system is broken.

An essential national safety service should never be operating with chronic staffing shortages as its normal condition.

Enough reviews. Enough promises of cultural change. Enough asking communities to participate in consultations whose outcomes Airservices ultimately controls.

I demand the Australian Government abolish Airservices Australia’s current corporatised model and return air traffic management, aircraft-noise management and associated community obligations to a directly accountable Commonwealth public-service framework.

Safety must come before commercial profits.

The public interest must come before industry convenience.

And communities affected by aviation deserve an organisation accountable to them through their elected government, not another review of a model that has repeatedly demonstrated that it is not working.

Minister, the evidence has accumulated for long enough.

The aircraft-noise failures are not new.

The staffing crisis is not new.

The warnings are not new.

What is new is the disturbing concentration of safety incidents now occurring while those longstanding problems remain unresolved.

Do not wait for a catastrophic accident before concluding that structural reform was necessary.
End the corporatised Airservices model now.

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