Around 140,000 people in south-east Queensland will no longer be directly under regular flight paths through operational changes announced by Airservices Australia.
Under Package 3 of the Noise Action Plan for Brisbane Airport, announced this week, four major flight path changes will be actioned.
This follows consultation with community and industry in July and August 2025.
The main changes are:
- Arrival flightpaths to the northern end of the new runway (over water) will be shifted further north to reduce the population overflown by approximately 59,000 residents, including in the southern part of Bribie Island.
- New short-approach connections (where aircraft turn to line up with the runway when closer to the airport) to the northern end of the new runway have also been created for non-jet aircraft. This will help to share noise between long and short-approach flightpaths, and to reduce the impact of visual arrivals over Redcliffe.
- Arrivals flightpaths to the southern end of both runways will be changed to address new aviation rules which enable Independent Parallel Runway Operations (IPRO) – where planes can arrive side-by-side to both runways at the same time – and to reduce the total population overflown by approximately 35,000. While IPRO is not expected to be regularly used until late 2027, the new flightpaths will commence operation on July 9 2026 to achieve noise improvement benefits quickly.
- Departure flightpaths from the legacy runway to the south-east will be shifted further east to reduce the population overflown by approximately 44,500 residents. Minor adjustments will be considered in the final design to address concerns raised by Southern Moreton Bay Island communities during engagement.
- Safety work is being progressed on the proposed night-time, over-airport departure from the new runway ahead of confirming if this can proceed to trial. This safety work is focused on ensuring aircraft can safely cross in front of the legacy runway to turn out across the bay.
Airservices Australia said the latest changes were in addition to earlier actions to increase flights over water and increase the altitude of flights over some impacted communities.
In a statement, Airservices Head of Community Engagement Donna Marshall said the organisation had committed to noise mitigation measures where practicable.
“We considered a range of factors in making these flightpath decisions including population, noise levels, frequency of overflight, cumulative impact, track miles and emissions and aircraft altitude,” she said
“We want to thank community and industry for their feedback. We have heard from the community many times that we need to reduce the impact of aircraft operations on communities, in keeping with our legislated obligations, and making decisions which reduce the number of people overflown is a key way to achieve this.”
Airservices said it recognised that some of the outcomes may be disappointing for some members of the community and that aircraft noise can have a significant impact on people’s wellbeing.
It said it would continue to provide access to independent wellbeing support through Converge International, at no cost to community members who feel affected by aircraft operations.
Assessment reports are available via Noise Action Plan for Brisbane | Engage Airservices for a four-week public review and comment period.
A summary of community engagement conducted across 2024 and 2025 to support these decisions can be viewed here
Feedback can be provided here:
communityengagement@AirservicesAustralia.com(External link) or via post to Noise Action Plan for Brisbane, Locked Bag 747, Eagle Farm Q 4009.
Feedback is open until August 23, 2026.
