Weather events

We understand delays and cancellations are frustrating and we’re focused on getting you to where you need to go as quickly and safely as possible. When delays happen, the entire Sydney Airport team works closely with our airline and government partners to get you safely on your way as soon as we can.

Airservices Australia – the Federal Government-owned organisation that manages Australia’s airspace – manages how many planes can arrive and depart at Sydney Airport based on a number of factors, including weather.

Airlines then assess the likely impact on their operations and manage their schedules accordingly. This often involves cancelling and consolidating services on high-frequency routes like Sydney to Melbourne and Sydney to Brisbane.

What causes delays and cancellations?

There are a wide range of circumstances which can lead to delays and cancellations, including disruptive weather events, technology-related outages, aircraft-specific technical issues and emergency events.

The extent to which these disrupt services can vary greatly. For example, storms and strong winds can potentially slow or halt operations for several hours.

Weather impacts

Sydney often experiences summer storms in the early part of the year, which can reduce Sydney Airport’s permitted hourly movements as a safety precaution.

In late winter and early spring, strong westerly winds can impact operations. When wind gusts are over 20 knots (around 36 kmph), Airservices Australia will move services from the dual North/South parallel runways to the single East/West runway.

This is commonly known as ‘single runway operations’ and can significantly reduce the airport’s permitted throughput. For example, if there are 70 movements per hour in the schedule, 15-20 flights may need to be cancelled every hour the winds are prevalent, because operations are running on one runway and not two.

Following delay events, the extent to which we can clear the backlog and catch up is limited by regulation, including the hourly movement cap.

Regulatory rules

Historically, Sydney Airport has been restricted by a cap of 80 take-offs and landings in any one hour, which is measured every 15 minutes.

While not related to the safe operation of aircraft or the airport, the cap is in place to limit the effect of noise on the local community living immediately around the airport.

Existing regulations don’t allow an increase in the number of take offs and landings per hour following a major disruption, which prevents us from clearing backlogs or catching up on delayed flights. And while we're focused on getting you to your destination as quickly as we can, we are required to operate within the rules as they exist today.

However, the Federal Government has announced its intention to introduce a ‘recovery period’ following a major disruption, which would allow us to operate up to 85 movements for a two-hour period. Once implemented, this will help to prevent cancellations and catch up on delays, getting you on your way sooner.

Understanding the impact of fog

Fog forms in the morning because it’s the coolest time of the day when the temperature drops to the dew point temperatures and the relative humidity approaches 100 percent.

Fog can be a challenge at the airport. While the airport remains open, fog can impact visibility on the runways, taxiways and aprons and it poses a safety risk to aircraft and passengers.

If visibility is below 800 metres an aircraft cannot land. Aircraft are also spaced further apart when visibility is low and that slows down the landing rate compared to a clear day. That’s why you’ll often hear about aircraft landings as opposed to take-offs being restricted during fog due to low visibility.

If there’s enough visibility for an aircraft to taxi to the runway – it can depart, which is why take-offs during fog aren’t as impacted in the same way.

On average Sydney has 15 days of fog a year and we work closely with Airservices Australia and airlines to ensure the safety of everyone.