EK413 departed after curfew?

[Sarah C]

$500,000 is a drop in the ocean for an airline like Emirates - they would probably prefer to pay it vs the bill of departing the next day with accomodation, missed connections and the aircraft being late to its next sector.

[Jeff N]

I think the so called 'gateway to Australia' needs to get with it. With all the yap about it being a 24 hour global city and all the associated '****-speak', here we have it's airport closed for virtually 30 per cent of every day!

As has been mentioned, current generation aircraft are a hell of a lot quiter than 707s, DC10s and others from yesteryear.

Short of that, I believe they should partially relax the curfew so that there were still no scheduled movements, but still allowing say 60 minutes to cater for the unexpected occasional movements brought on by weather and other unforeseens etc.

[Mark T]

There are many other cities around the world that have gateways with a curfew with London Heathrow being a good example of this. LHR does allow dispensations however. I know that I have landed there at 2am in the past and a lot of these dispensations would be due to weather, especially in examples like the recent snow in London. I guess there just needs to be some common sense used.

[Bernie P]

In the article re QF aborts TWO take offs in LHR, it eventually left at 2am! I thought reading it, this was a brave move by QF, and wondered IF there would be any fine implications involved similar to this EK event... Does anyone know IF LHR has a penalty for these type of events, notwithstanding dispensations of course...

A second attempt to take off was abandoned as the plane taxied along the runway, a Qantas spokeswoman said. The flight eventually left at 2am.

Source: SMH.com.au

[Nils Kenny]

You have to hand it to the Government's over the year's the Sydney Airport Act was last amendend in 2006 for the Act past in 1995, and it still has part's that state until Badgery's Creek is in operation. The Secretary can give the Ok for upto 14 Aircraft per week to take-off and land during 11pm - Midnight. Airlines should really push the Government on this. the Act can be found here
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C20...ml/Text#param7
Best of luck reading it.