4 September 2005

Canberra Airport besieged by sleep apnea

| S4anta
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The Canberra Times is reporting here that a QANTAS flight from Perth had to chuck a few laps of Canberra until an air traffic controller could grace the Canberra Airport with their presence.

Nice work my friend, I hope work hasn’t ruined your golf swing.

UPDATED: The Canberra Times has more coverage of this here.

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Slow news day. (Aside from the whole New Orleans being destroyed thing, of course.)

Aircraft circling while the dopey controller gets out of bed.

it’s pretty third world.

How is this even news?

Then again, I quite like aircraft noise. Go figure.

You could do a lot worse as far as backwaters go. I quite like it here.

Absent Diane4:31 pm 01 Sep 05

Xman spot on about people who move near music venues and then complain about the noise. If I ever meet one those cretins I will be prepared to go to jail for my possible actions. I agree that Canberra is a backwater as well…. but for some reason I keep coming back!!! Perhaps Im just a backwater hick at heart

Canberra might be a backwater, but it’s a bloody beaut’ backwater!

X-Man,

Yet again I realise why I spit on the homeless when drining tequilla. Your thoughts disgust me as nearly as a nude che.

Well said xman.

Like wankers that buy an apartment near a music venue and then complain about the noise. First up against the wall come the revolution.

By the way. Canberra IS a backwater.

If you live near an airport you should expect noise! I get really angry when people buy a house near a facility like an airport, then start moaning about the noise.

Absent Diane2:48 pm 01 Sep 05

I say fuck noise over suburban areas…. who cares…. its only queanbeyan for fucks sake

OMG!!! ONE controller on duty at Canberra airport? I can’t think of another supposedly international airport that has one person on duty from 6AM and doesn’t even operate 24 hours a day.

It’s no wonder people don’t want to come and live in the ACT, when it looks and acts like a backwater jack.

Mr Evil,

Noise over suburban areas. In this case Queanbeyan and close lying areas of Canberra to the airport.

I know Canberra isn’t a 24hr operational airport, but why dont they open the airport before 6am?

I don’t know if it applies in this case, but there is currently an industrial dispute between air-traffic controllers and Airservices Australia.

The air-traffic controllers say their numbers have been cut back too far and the number crunchers in charge have been relying on soaring rates of overtime to cope. There’s apparently an industrial campaign for controllers not to answer their phones on days off so they can’t be called in for overtime to cover shortfalls.

Bec,

It is easier to smuggle drugs when no-one is watching i guess.

Then why on earth do they schedule a flight to arrive before the airport opens?

Folks, Canberra airport is not a 24hr facility, the red eye from Perth regurarly arrives before the airport opens and so has to do some laps

I’ve been on that flight before when we boarded at midnight but didn’t take off until 0115 because we would have been arriving in Canberra too early

stronger winds anywhere along the 4000km flight will only make the flight faster and they cannot know the windspeed along that entire distance

Feh. Standard busines practise – keep cutting back until something embarrasing goes wrong, then claim to have “fixed” the problem by going back to the way it probably was before (if it’s always been just one guy there in the morning, I’m shocked this hasn’t happened before – even these guys are human and fallable).

That’s just great, isn’t it? I would like to know why they only have one Controller on duty anyway, or why there isn’t at least some sort of back-up if this problem arises.

In June/July last year a QANTAS 737 got a little too close to a mountain south of Canberra whilst in a holding pattern while waiting for someone to come and put the “Open” sign up at Canberra Airport. Again, I believe that someone had slept in/fallen ill that particular morning too.

Jesus, this is the capital city of Australia; not some bloody backwater.

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