Making a complaint

When we receive your submission a Complaint Specialist will review it and determine the appropriate response. We will endeavour to contact you within 21 days if you have:

• asked a relevant question, or
• raised a noise issue to which we can reasonably respond.

If you have contacted us previously and received a response, we may not respond further if there is not additional information that we can reasonably provide.

We will respond to you in writing wherever possible. This is because aviation can be complex. In our experience, the information we need to provide to you is best explained in writing. If you contact us by phone generally we will not try to answer your questions on the spot. We will investigate and research your concerns and then write to you with our findings. If you have further questions after reading our response we will be happy to discuss these with you.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you may ask for your complaint to be escalated for a review.

For each issue you raise with us we create a case with a case number. If you contact us again about the same issue we add a note onto that case. We do not create a new case. This is because we consider all submissions about the same issue to be the one complaint.

If we cannot identify any way to solve your problem we will be clear and honest with you about this and we will explain the reasons why. Once we have done so, and have provided you with all relevant information, we may advise you that we would not expect to respond to you again on that issue.

You only need to contact us once to have your complaint seriously considered. Contacting us more than once does not increase the likelihood that something can be done to solve your problem. We have access to aircraft movement data for all the major and secondary airports, so there is no need to advise us every time you are affected by air traffic.

When we analyse and report on complaint trends, we focus on the number of complainants and the issues they raise. The number of times individuals contact us about the same issue is not reported internally or externally. If we did, this would present a skewed picture of the level of community concern about the issue.

We investigate issues that are raised with us. If we find some way that a change could be made to give a better noise outcome to residents, we will submit that for further more detailed investigation.

In considering any change, first of all we must have regard to safety – any change that could compromise safety cannot be progressed.

Managing aircraft in a regular way and minimising complexities are central tenets of safety. We also consider the efficient operations of the airport and whether there would be an overall noise improvement for the community. We do not generally consider that moving noise from one part of the community to another is a noise improvement, unless the population affected is significantly smaller. In considering this we have to have regard to the entire flight path and the fact that moving it at one point may result in adverse effects many kilometres away.

Unfortunately, the reality is that it is very difficult to identify flight path changes in metropolitan areas that can be made without moving the noise, or compromising safety or efficiency.

We produce quarterly reports that include discussion of issues raised by complainants. These are available through our airports page. These reports also discuss investigations that have been carried out and other information such as runway and flight path use and noise monitoring data.

We also provide monthly reports to major airports and to some secondary airports about the number of complainants from each suburb and the issues they raised. We report to airports so that airport management is informed about community concerns, and not because we think that airports can take any action to solve these issues. In our reports to airports we include the issues that have been raised, how many people have raised each issue, and what suburb those complainants come from.

The Aircraft Noise Ombudsman conducts independent administrative reviews of Airservices management of aircraft noise-related activities, including the handling of complaints or enquiries made to Airservices about aircraft noise, community consultation processes related to aircraft noise and the presentation and distribution of aircraft noise-related information.

If you are dissatisfied with the way your complaint has been handled you may request a review by the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman.