Originally Posted by
Advance
So in this political planning methodology, the airport is almost physically complete. Now is the time to tell the populace what it means to them in terms of flight paths... now that it is too late to change the runways and thus the resulting flight paths.
Oh, yes Minister, we will indeed consult widely with the community, but with the physical infrastructure almost complete that is just for show, box ticking, expensive time wasting to say we did it.
Now that we have decided the flight paths, yes Dick, now we (who, tell me their name and expertise) can do an airspace study and invent some new, never before heard of (certainly not USA best practice) method of managing this mess of Departmental creation. Somebody has already remarked on the resultant camel of a horse designed by committee.
What an unholy mess. Why can people not learn? The USA tried to get Dulles to replace Washington National, the Canadians tried to get Miirabel to replace Dorval for Montreal. Neither worked as desired.
I really don't understand why folks are surprised by this, since exactly the same process (with some local variation) was followed with Brisbane's additional runway not all that long ago: Step 1: Build it. Step 2: Release the flight paths to the locals to complain about, Step 3: Pin the blame on one or more of the hundreds of government-selected 'consultants' on the buck-pass list and finally move on squeaky-clean.
It seems it works so well that it's SOP for governments all over.