Sydney curfew forces sleep over at Canberra Airport

[oz_mark]

The Canberra Airport has taken a swipe at Sydney Airport's curfew, after more than 200 Qantas passengers were forced to sleep in Canberra's terminal lounge on Monday night.
Three Sydney-bound flights were diverted to Canberra between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm because of wild storms.



Once the weather improved two of the flights continued on to Sydney.

Sydney curfew forces sleep over at Canberra Airport - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[Mal]

People were also sleeping over in Brisbane's terminal for the same reason.

Why is there no curfew dispensation given when weather affects plane movements?

 

[anat0l]

Why is there no curfew dispensation given when weather affects plane movements?

Because SYD is stupid. End of story.

Seriously - does someone have to die from a denied dispensation before SYD realises how ridiculously idiotic this curfew is?


More seriously - did the storms appreciably clear after the beginning of the curfew? If not, there probably isn't a story here anyway, apart from possibly allowing planes to arrive much earlier in the morning.

 

[farstar]

Why were people sleeping in the airports? LCC policies? Not enough hotels?

Then article explains that there were no rooms.

 

[markis10]

People were also sleeping over in Brisbane's terminal for the same reason.

Why is there no curfew dispensation given when weather affects plane movements?

Because the law does not permit changes when the reason behind those changes could have been foreseen ahead of time, which was certainly the case here given the storms were forecast well in advance.

 

[NM]

Seriously - does someone have to die from a denied dispensation before SYD realises how ridiculously idiotic this curfew is?

The curfew is not imposed by Sydney Airport. Nobody on staff at Sydney Airport has the ability to allow dispensation for the curfew. That can only come from the Federal Minister or his delegate. So any complaint should be against the Federal Government and not against SYD. I expect the owners of Sydney Airport would like to have the curfew removed so they can schedule more movements and make more money from their facilities.

 

[markis10]

The guidelines are pretty clear in this case:

"The following are circumstances that will not be considered exceptional, and will therefore not lead to a dispensation:

delays caused by adverse weather conditions which are known to the operator prior to an aircraft taking off;"

 

[JohnK]

Why is there no curfew dispensation given when weather affects plane movements?

That sounds like a sensible idea. How easy would it be to implement?

Seriously - does someone have to die from a denied dispensation before SYD realises how ridiculously idiotic this curfew is?

There is nothing wrong with a curfew. It is in place in a lot of airports around the world.

Do people want the airlines to introduce departures and arrivals throughout the night? Although airports like BKK, SIN and HKG may not have official curfews departures and arrivals from midnight to 6:00am are limited.