Air Traffic Control Issues

[Brissy1]

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A take off every three minutes compared to every 90 seconds at Heathrow

Don't know where your 3 min comes from; total 80/hour in Sydney, av. 40/hour take-offs = every 90 seconds capacity.
But if you're talking about ACTUAL takeoffs, it's just that Sydney actually doesn't have the same demand, and has more capacity than it uses; demand midmorning, midafternoon, and late-ish evenings is lower, sometimes much lower, than 80/hour capacity.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

²

Don't know where your 3 min comes from; total 80/hour in Sydney, av. 40/hour take-offs = every 90 seconds capacity.
But if you're talking about ACTUAL takeoffs, it's just that Sydney actually doesn't have the same demand, and has more capacity than it uses; demand midmorning, midafternoon, and late-ish evenings is lower, sometimes much lower, than 80/hour capacity.

well… whatever the ‘capacity’ it wasn’t happening today. I set the timer on the phone… it was actually a lot longer than 3 mins cause we waited for two aircraft, both out past the headlands, coming in to land. No takeoffs in between.