Back story

In September 2017 with no community consultation, Airservices Australia implemented new standard departure and arrival air routes into and out of Hobart called SIDs and STARs.

Some of these flew over semi-rural communities, with low ambient background noise levels, that had never before been impacted by aircraft noise. The initial arrival path meant that all planes landing from the south of the airport (known as Runway 30) flew directly over Dunalley, and heavily impacted surrounding areas, like Bream Creek, Marion Bay, Connelly’s Marsh and Murdunna.

Strong community pushback from the community led to the southern approach being moved 2-3 km back towards the airport in March 2018. A series of safety incidents, pressure from airlines angry about extra fuel consumption from the longer tracks, a Federal Court challenge, questions in federal parliament and an investigation by the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman forced Airservices to conduct a ‘greenfields’ review of the flight paths.

Hobart airspace review

While Airservices engaged an external consultant for the review, over a number of ‘community engagement’ sessions it became clear that not much had changed with the ASA culture. Documents obtained by SECLA through a freedom of information request showed that the external consultant’s draft report was significantly changed by Airservices, and misrepresented the community views in several important areas.

The review report in October 2018 pitched a number of changes to the air routes into Hobart including two important changes implemented in November 2019.

1 Runway 30 Smart track arrival path

In its consultation Airservices proposed a new ‘smart track’ for planes arriving at the south of the airport (known as Runway 30). The new path would bring suitably accredited aircraft and crews on an approach much closer to the airport, with less fuel and noise emissions and greater safety than the route over Dunalley.

Community members participating in the consultation supported this path, with Airservices staff advising they expected that while not all airlines would initially be able to use the smart track, eventually all would due to savings in time and fuel consumption.

2 Runway 12 Southern departure path

Another change proposed was a minor alteration to the location of the path for aircraft departing from the south of the airport (known as Runway 12) to accommodate other proposed changes. In fact when the final design was released, this path had been moved approximately 9 km closer to Dunalley and the other newly overflown communities in 2017.

This meant that as well as experiencing the impact of southern arrivals - for about 70% of the year - these communities would now be exposed to the impact of southern departures for the remaining 30% of the year.

Post-implementation review

Following the implementation, ASA completed a Post Implementation Review (PIR) in April 2022. SECLA members attended all community engagement sessions, and supplied submissions to Airservices Australia, proposing solutions which would share impact of aircraft noise more equitably, such routes closer to the airport and to the west.

Instead, the PIR resulted in a suite of 11 recommendations, many of which further increase impact on our communities: https://engage.airservicesaustralia.com/81678/widgets/390234/documents/286935

SECLA is particularly concerned about 3 of these recommendations (see below), all of which directly impact Dunalley and surrounding communities which were not overflown prior to September 2017. These have the potential to leave communities more affected than ever, reversing previous improvement and reinstating proposals already consulted on and rejected.

Take action!

You can take action to influence the outcome of these recommendations - learn how by clicking the links: