Perth resident makes 21,716 complaints about aircraft noise in a year – 40 per cent of the national total

One Perth resident was responsible for more than 21,000 complaints about aircraft noise over the Western Australian capital last year.

The serial whiner’s 21,716 silent protests made up 40 percent of the 51,589 aircraft noise complaints filed nationwide in 2023.

That equates to filing one appeal every 25 minutes, or about 59 per day, for an entire year.

The unidentified whiner topped a list of five people who filed 30,543 complaints during that period – about 60 percent of the national figure.

His or her contacts with the Noise Complaint and Information Service were revealed in an Airservices Australia submission to a federal investigation into aircraft noise.

The top five was completed by four people who complained a total of 9,827 times about noise pollution at Brisbane and Archerfield, the secondary airport of the Queensland capital.

The angriest Sydneysider made 852 objections and another made 672. Hobart was next on the list, with one person at their wits’ end 527 times.

Brisbane’s largest total was 500, while no one in Melbourne made the top 10.

Airservices Australia monitors noise pollution at Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Essendon, Adelaide and Perth airports.

The Noise and Flight Path Monitoring System (NFPMS) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, collecting data from every plan that flies in and out of every facility.

Last year there were more than twice as many complaints as in 2022: 51,589 compared to 25,178.

But there was a relatively small difference in the number of complainants: 5,035 and 4,768 respectively.

The survey received more than 80 submissions from interested parties, including airports, airlines, tourism forums and environmental groups.

A Brisbane resident who wrote a submission said the “casual acceptance” by aviation policymakers that aircraft noise was a necessary inconvenience was “depressing”.

A serial whiner’s 21,716 silent protests made up 40 percent of the 51,589 aircraft noise complaints filed nationwide in 2023. Stock Image

‘These are people who do not suffer the consequences of their policies, who have never lived under a busy flight path, who do not know the extreme suffering and suffering caused, and who do not recognize the research into the damage caused by aircraft noise. ‘ They wrote.

“For me, it’s not just about the many flights a night that get in the way of a good night’s sleep, but also about the unfairness and opposition I’ve encountered in trying to make my voice heard by those who treat citizens as statistics.

“There’s something intensely irritating and deeply offensive about the intrusiveness of the rumbling, whining crescendo of airplane noise interrupting your life.”

NFPMS uses long-term noise monitors located within communities and, according to Airservices, Australia is the world’s largest, most geographically distributed system of its kind.

Some monitors have been around for more than twenty years.

The aircraft noise inquiry is being carried out by Parliament’s Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee.

The research examines the impact and limitation of aircraft noise on residents and businesses in capitals and regional cities.

The committee will report in October.