Brisbane Airport told of way to cut delays

SIMPLE changes to airspace management could boost Brisbane Airport's efficiency and relieve frustrating delays almost immediately, according to an aviation industry veteran.

"We could increase the capacity by 10-20 per cent even without the second runway," said Paul Bredereck, whose 35 years in the sector included nine as CEO of the Aviation Australia training centre.

Persistent delays have given Brisbane Airport one of Australia's worst records for on-time flight performance, prompting The Courier-Mail's #bnelateagain Twitter campaign.

Mr Bredereck, who is now managing director of the new charter airline JetGo Australia, said Brisbane Airport Corporation had "dropped the ball" in not starting the $1.3 billion runway earlier, and said it "should be locked in a room without toilet breaks" until it sorted out how to fund the runway.

"But runway capacity is not the only issue," he said. Changes to "poor airspace management" would deliver short-term improvements.

He called on Airservices Australia - who run air traffic control - to introduce the same procedure used at Sydney Airport where separate "arrival" and "departure" controllers are employed, along with a flow director who would take responsibility for guiding aircraft once they reached about 100km from Brisbane.

DELAYS: The new runway at Brisbane Airport would ease the flight delays that have plagued the airport in recent months.

"That system has made a massive difference to Sydney and other busy airports. You can line up and land aircraft more frequently.

"Brisbane outgrew the current system about five years ago," said Mr Bredereck, who estimates 12 to 18 extra air traffic controllers would have to be employed.

He also backed comments from Queensland commercial pilot Helen Trenerry last week that the minimum gap between aircraft could be reduced in line with overseas airports to allow them to touch down more frequently.

And Mr Bredereck called for a review of the use of Brisbane Airport's smaller cross-runway which re-opened 10 days ago after being closed for 20 weeks to allow preliminary works for the proposed new parallel runway.

IN DOUBT: The construction site of the 3.3km Brisbane airport runway.

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