60 Reasons to Protest: Reason #29 – It’s our bread & butter
Tonight, we ask you to post in the comments your favourite adjective to describe Airservices’ conduct. But first, have a read of this:
BFPCA’s early community advocacy and pressure throughout 2020/2021 led to then Transport Minister Barnaby Joyce giving in to our demands for an independent review of Airservices’ dodgy handiwork.
In Senate Estimates 22 March 2021, Airservices’ CEO Jason Harfield referred to flight path design as their “bread and butter.”
We beg to differ in that assessment, and whistle blowers who contacted us and our own technical advisors, too. They argue that Airservices have cut costs and have thus not adequately invested in the professional development of their staff as well as the type of advanced technology commonly used overseas such as flight path modelling using AI running on supercomputers.
What is worse, Airservices let go of 184 senior Air Traffic Controllers (some with up to 52 years of experience) between 1 Oct 2021 and 8 Dec 2022 – 144 of them due to a Retirement Incentive Scheme, which cost $58 million.
Barnaby Joyce made Airservices engage UK-based Trax International as a specialist advisory firm on 20 December 2021. Trax brought significant international experience having delivered similar airspace change initiatives at some of the world’s busiest airports, including London’s Heathrow Airport. The initial value of the contract totalled $590,450 + GST for 4 months of work (Jan – April 2022).
Early April 2022, the Trax interim report was first leaked and then properly released. It listed:
49 improvement recommendations!
You have to pause for a moment and let that sink in.
Australia’s national flight path design agency Airservices created and launched a new airspace architecture for Brisbane on 12 July 2020. They worked on this continuously from the 2006/2007 MDP/EIS to the launch in 2020 – some 13 years!
It took Trax only three months (and over half a million dollars in consultancy fees) to identify 49 ways Airservices’ handiwork can be improved. So much for “flight path design is our bread and butter” – yes, when you optimise all design options for your mates at Brisbane Airport Corporation to maximise their profits and throw communities under the Airbus.
In a number of the community workshops, the Trax representatives suggested on multiple occasions that the Brisbane flight path architecture is so flawed that if it were to be lodged in the UK it would have been challenged by a judicial review and “called in” by the courts before it could proceed any further.
Airservices Australia advised on 31 August 2022 that they “will adopt all recommendations in the recently released Brisbane New Parallel Runway Flight Paths Post Implementation Review (PIR) Independent Review Final Report by Trax International.” In Senate Estimates they also advised that they have “initially allocated $15 million to the project as part of Airservices investment program.”
Airservices were also asked, why did they fail to implement ANY of the 49 TRAX recommendations for noise mitigation and abatements ON THEIR OWN when the new airspace was launched on 12 July 2020?
The answer will blow your mind.
“Given that Trax was appointed after the opening of the new runway its recommendations were unable to be considered in the airspace design and commissioning of the new parallel runway at Brisbane Airport in 2020.”
🤯
Airservices are not just incapable of implementing international best practice noise abatements due to their capture by the aviation industry, they are also unrepentant and arrogant.
Can you think of other adjectives that describe Airservices’ conduct? Add them in the comments.
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