East Midland Airport claims airport complaints down

Date added: 30 July, 2008

29.7.2008   (This is Leicestershire)

One person complained 2,000 times about airport noise in a year, it has emerged.

The person contacted East Midlands Airport an average of five times a day during
2007, managers said.

They were among 13 residents responsible for more than 6,300 complaints about
the Castle Donington airport last year, according to a report.

Complaints about noise were made about flights during the daytime and night.

The leader of a campaign group calling for an end to night flights at the airport
said he was not among the most persistent callers – but said people were right
to complain.

Steve Charlish, of Demand East Midlands Airport is Now Designated (Demand), has
campaigned for air traffic restrictions for years.

Mr Charlish said: “If people don’t complain then they will have to reap what
they sow.   It’s important that people keep complaining. This is one of the noisiest
airports in Europe.

“It’s only going to get worse. People are losing sleep night after night and
it affects health.”

People living under the flight paths, or close to the airport, have complained
that their quality of life is being wrecked by night flights.

Last year, nearly 20,000 planes flew over the area between the hours of 11pm
and 7am – an increase of 2,000 on the previous 12 months.

The airport does not share the same restrictions as Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted
– which are not allowed to have planes take off or land at night.

The total number of complaints was 7,128 in 2007 – the vast majority about noise.

The figure is down from 8,000 complaints the year before, while the overall number
of people complaining dropped from 580.

An airport spokesman said: “We take complaints seriously.

“We log, investigate and respond by letter to every complaint. In some cases,
we visit the person to better understand how aircraft affect them.

“Feedback like this has helped us change the way aircraft operate.

“We’re pleased there were fewer complaints last year and the number of complainants
fell even more steeply.”

The figures came from a community and environment investment report, which said
the airport had installed noise monitoring equipment in the past year. Most aircraft
follow a “continuous descent approach” which reduces noise.

A noise penalty scheme for those who break thresholds has been made tougher,
leading to an extra £11,000 of fines invested into the local community.

The airport’s annual report, also said the amount of waste it recycles more than
doubled from in 2005 to 318 in 2007.

link to article

I omitted to add that the airport complaints telephone number is 0845

1088540 and the e-mail contact is environment@nottinghamema.com It is

easy for someone who is not disturbed by the racket created by aircraft

to take sides with the party creating the noise and thus denigrate

those seen to be raining on their parade. The complex mixture of

frequencies created by aircraft noise makes it almost impossible to

habituate and thus ‘get used to it’. The Chairman of the North-West

Leicestershire Planning Committee recently dismissed countless

professionally refereed research projects into aircraft noise

disturbance by saying that ‘people only hear what they want to hear’.

We can thus expect an unbiased decision on the runway extension then?

If empathising with those affected (or should that be ‘afflicted’?)

with aircraft noise is too difficult, try to imagine the effects of an

HGV operator setting up business in your road or street and operating

all night and every night without any let-up. Then try to imagine your

frustration when your repeated complaints are met with what are

effectively complaints that you bothered to complain!

GRAHAM STOCKS, LEICESTERSHIRE CPRE, Quorn

Lack of effective noise controls was of course an attractive feature

for the airport’s present owners and when the Manchester Airport Group

made its bid for EMA, Cllr. Brian Harrison, Chairman of Manchester

Airport at the time, said: “These acquisitions are a good deal for the

shareholders and will yield a good return as well as expanding the

group’s range of activities – especially with the cargo prospects at

East Midlands, an airport site that is one of the least environmentally

constrained in the country.” What is not generally realised here is

that revenue from our regional airport supports Council Tax levels for

Manchester City Council and its nine satellite boroughs (Salford,

Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside, Trafford, Bury, Bolton and

Wigan). Manchester City has a 55% holding and the rest is shared

equally among the other authorities. This quote appeared in an article

titled ‘The Empire Builders’ in the Manchester Evening News on February

20th, 2001: ‘[Manchester Airport Group] board members believe further

expansion outside Manchester can win business from the overcrowded

capital. They say it could boost profits and help cut council tax bills

for the 10 Greater Manchester local authorities which own the airport.’

Part of that expansion is a plan to extend EMA’s runway yet again,

although the reasons for the large capital expenditure have not been

made clear. This plan has been ‘on ice’ for eight years and it may

possibly have something to do with Heathrow off-loading short and

medium-haul flights. The question of what the runway extension is

actually for was put to an airport representative and the reply was,

?As a big capital business we have to meet customer satisfaction.? This

of course is no answer; in 1997, the Competition Commission reported

that Manchester Airport’s ‘…target IRR [internal rate of return] on

new investment was at least 10 per cent in the case of capacity-related

projects and at least 15 per cent on other projects. This had been set

to ensure that MA covered its cost of capital and made an adequate

return for its shareholders.’ Obviously, there is something very real

out there that we’re not being told about and it will undoubtedly mean

more flights and more noise – and more revenue to offset Greater

Manchester’s Council Tax levels. So, I take my hat off to those doughty

individuals who have not succumbed to ‘complaints fatigue’ or

browbeating by EMA. This refers to the fact that many of us, myself

included, tend to give up reporting to the airport after a while,

following night after night of interrupted sleep due to aircraft noise.

The reason for giving up is that the feedback merely states that

aircraft were ‘operating normally’ and no further action is taken. A

typical weekday night at EMA sees 75 to 80 aircraft movements between

the hours of 11pm and 7am – try to find another UK civil airport with

anything even approaching this ridiculous level of operations, the

effects of which are felt across not only Leicestershire but E. Staffs,

Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire too. It is therefore in the airport’s

interests (for which read ‘Greater Manchester’) to minimise complaints

regarding adverse environmental effects. If this means marginalising

‘serial complainers’ and not publishing an airport telephone complaints

number in directories it is to the airport’s financial advantage in

that complaint statistics are a Key Performance Indicator, reported

back to the Government.

GRAHAM STOCKS, LEICESTERSHIRE CPRE, Quorn

Posted: Wednesday, July 30th, 2008. Filed in News about Airports.