What an agressive article in the SMH. Comment is being sought as to why dispensation was given? The whole article is predicated as if Emirates was doing something extremely bad. Lets get real, we have a plane with 500 people that lands 12 minutes after 11pm, with dispensation. Is it really worth diverting to Melbourne, and causing all that inconvenience, and having to find 300+ hotel rooms at midnight. At least common sense prevailed.
Some of that may be so, but EK has form when it comes to breaking this curfew, seemingly more so than any other international airline.
If a legislature passes legislation enshrining .05 as a blood alcohol content above which a driver of a road vehicle is fined or has his or her licence taken away for a defined period, does a court suddenly suggest that an individual with a BAC of .052 can have no conviction recorded? I gather not normally, because it is an absolute liability offence.
Presumably any fine is chickenfeed to EK's very wealthy owners.
One salient question is 'why schedule a major international flight with half an hour's window in which to arrive before a legislated nightly curfew?' Is this irresponsible, and pushing one's (in this case EK's) luck? Does it respect the expressed wishes of the legislature if flights continually come close to breaching the agreed and longstanding curfew? Is that good behaviour from a 'corporate citizen?"
There may be the additional airline slackness of an extra half an hour or so built into the schedule (assuming normal winds and so on) but last night's flight benefited from what seemed to be a strong tailwind and yet still failed to 'make curfew.'
Perhaps Emirates needs to accept the curfew and if it can (although there will always be connecting flights at in its case DXB) timetable the flight to arrive at SYD an hour and a half or two hours earlier if at all possible.
Of all major capital city airports, SYD must have by far the most residents affected by airport noise (although the 34L arrival last night would rank as an approach affecting the least number - but an AFFer in Kogarah said in this thread that he could hear it). For proximity to the city centre, SYD airport is rivalled only by ADL of our major mainland capital city State (as distinct from the ACT) airports. Many fairly close residences predated the airport.
Most of these residents vote, and want seven hours of sleeping, whether or not planes have become quieter. I do not know how they cope with the AaE and Toll among other freighters in the small hours.
I had a QF A380 pass overhead at roughly 1100 metres recently during the day in MEL and it was quite noisy. At night, there are fewer other noises (save for barking dogs and mewing tomcats, but some of us rarely experience or hear those) with which to compete.
Because SYD remains a major business centre and arguably Australia's most attractive by far capital city for international visitors (Melbourne may to me be more pleasant in its CBD, but we cannot really compete with the Harbour and Opera House as sights), airlines will not simply suddenly permanently cancel flights and run them instead to MEL or BNE. The yields may be higher into and out of SYD: I do not have access to such data.'
There is no question that EK's morning 0600 departure from SYD is innovative (although rising at 0200 to catch a flight never suits everyone). That flight will not typically breach the curfew (it would rarely take off before 0600) but the late evening arrival is far more at risk of breaching the curfew.
Sample AFF with no advertisements? More..
