Pic: Nic Gibson Source: The Daily Telegraph
THE terminals at Sydney Airport are a ghost town while its international rivals allow passenger aircraft to land through the night, an analysis of airport curfews reveals.
A comparison between major international airports shows that the restrictions at Sydney Airport are equal to the world's toughest.
Sydney Airport is one of the world's few that bars all passenger flights between 11pm and 6am.
Narita airport in Tokyo also shuts between 11pm and 6am, but Tokyo, unlike Sydney, has a second airport that is open 24 hours that can accommodate passenger flights landing during the night hours.
Most major airports in the US have no restrictions on operations. In Europe, where aircraft noise is a much more contentious issue, most major airports have curfews during the night that ban the noisiest jets, while still allowing a limited number of quieter aircraft. Aviation analyst Neil Hansford said modern aircraft were just as quiet as the freighters already permitted to fly in and out of Sydney during the curfew.
Relaxing Sydney's curfew would deliver a boost to tourists flying the Kangaroo route to London, with flight schedules severely limited by the airport curfews at both ends.
"These airlines flying between Sydney and Europe are the ones that are already flying the A380 and (Boeing) 777 which are quieter planes," he said. "It's been demonstrated that the A380 is quiet, so the science is not coming into it, it's just driven by politics.
"The noise profiles of these planes are very similar so there's no reason why they couldn't take off and land as long as it was over Botany Bay like the current (freight planes) movements during the curfew are required to."
The analysis comes as business leaders push for Sydney Airport's capacity to be increased before a second airport is built.
Virgin chief John Borghetti yesterday called on operations at Mascot to be maximised.
"At some point in the future there is no question we will need an airport," Mr Borghetti said.
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese last night agreed with Mr Borghetti's view that Sydney Airport was filling up, but said the solution was in a new airport rather than further expansion.
"Sydney airport is filling up and the city needs a whole new airport sooner rather than later," he said.
But any changes to regulations that would squeeze out small regional services in favour of bigger aircraft at Sydney Airport would be rejected by a federal Coalition government, Nationals leader Warren Truss said.
"I can categorically rule out any watering down of the slots reserved for regional airlines," he said.
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