that's why I said it must be the most boring place on earth to live. Everyone in bed and lights out by 11. No parties. No going out for a night on the town. (etc etc)
Well, who is to say some of those people aren't good at lodging nuisance complaints against other causes of noise in that area.
I suppose they're also all thinking that it's much quieter to have a party than to land an A380.
this was a rare occasion caused by an ill passenger.
When did this happen? At the beginning of the flight (i.e. before take off), viz. passenger was ill on the ground, offloaded or comforted before take off, etc.?
Not that that shouldn't affect the dispensation process anyway (whether it be granted or denied). If the pax was ill during the flight, again that should have almost no bearing.
As for the earlier point of living under the flight path... the whole of London experiences that. You get used to it.
Obviously, some don't. Besides, it's not usually London city which yells about the noise, it's the immediate areas around Heathrow. That, combined with other environmental concerns, are one of the key stakeholder groups which are severely hampering any efforts to expand Heathrow with new buildings and new runways. (I think they should go with that Britannia idea).
MEL may not have a curfew and you may be used to such noise, but if that housing development gets approved around Tullamarine, suffice to say I wouldn't think for a second that you've heard the last of the word, 'curfew'. Similar for Canberra, though that has already been quite pre-empted - people want the housing and they thus don't want Canberra Airport expanded. Although Brisbane is currently beleaguered with expansion problems due to lack of runways, it too is coming into the firing line of persistent noise complaints which may result in curfews imposed on the airport, especially after the expansion of operations at Brisbane starts in earnest.
In Melbourne i live less than a couple of hundred metres from a hospital helipad. We get air ambulance flying just a couple hundred feet over our houses at all times of the night. It happens most nights and most of the time you sleep right through it.
I know you're trying to exemplify a point, but suffice to say if someone were to raise a noise grievance with intent to limit or prohibit the movement of ambulances (road or air), I'd say they should go jump. When someone's life is earnestly at stake, there's no room for someone else who merely has lost a few winks (or at worst, one night) of sleep.
Slightly different with SYD airport as not all those flights are emergencies; all you're doing is inconveniencing a bunch of passengers with non-critical (in the "grand scheme" of things) affairs. Or at least, that's the rationale. (Lucky the residents haven't spoken up too much about the small freight and mail planes throughout the night).
Sorry but I just don't see the justification in diverting a whole plane load of pax to MEL for a 14 minute breach once in a blue moon. Total inconvenience to satisfy a few on the ground.
Anyway - sense prevailed last night.
I don't see the justification mainly because it was merely 14 minutes late (wouldn't care if it were a plane of 50 passengers or 500 passengers). If it were 140 minutes late, different thing again (though at that point, it might have been a toss up whether the flight would have operated at all, unless it were due to something like adverse whether en route to Sydney).
