Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
London City Airport’s price tag under scrutiny after BA threatens to pull out most flights
The sale of London City Airport could be in jeopardy after British Airways, the largest airline based there (40% of the flights), threatened to pull out most of its aircraft. The second largest airline there has about 20% of the flights. The airport was put up for sale by GIP in in August 2015. BA fears that the high price of £2 billion could force its new owners to raise landing fees, and BA says it is not prepared to pay. Willie Walsh said the £2 billion price would mean a multiple of 44 times London City's earnings (EBITDA), though the airport said it was a multiple of 28. Walsh said the airport had "very high" airport charges of £19 per passenger, one of the most expensive after Heathrow, and with higher charges he would not make enough profit. The number of passengers at London City airport has grown from 2m in 2005 to an estimated 4.3m in 2015. The airport’s value could also be limited by its battle to get planning permission for a £200m development that would increase the number of passengers to 6m by 2023. The plans were blocked last year by Boris, over aircraft noise concerns. London City is appealing against this. The introduction of Crossrail in 2018, which will cut down the journey time from Canary Wharf to Heathrow, could be a real threat to the airport.
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CAGNE fears Arrivals Review proposal to change joining point to ILS could bring noise misery for many
CAGNE is a group set up to support residents, especially those in west Sussex, affected by Gatwick's operations to the west of the airport. While welcoming many of the recommendations by the Gatwick Arrivals Review, published last week, CAGNE is concerned about some recommendations. The Review proposed that when there is no wind, or light wind only, that the airport operates more flights on easterly operations (meaning landings approach from the west, and take off the east). CAGNE fears this would expose more residents well to the west of Gatwick to more arrivals noise. The Review also recommended that arrivals should join the ILS (the final straight line approach to the runway) nearer to the runway. In 2013, the CAA changed the distance of the joining point from around 7 - 12 nautical miles out to around 10 - 12 nautical miles, claiming this was for safety. The Review suggests returning this to 8 nautical miles. The impact of this would be that people living 7 - 9 nautical miles or so (about 8 - 10 miles) from the runway would suffer more noise. Some of these people have either not had plane noise before, or not had it for two or three years. Most of the people affected will be unaware of the proposed change, and they have not been consulted. CAGNE wants to raise awareness of the proposed change, and ensure people know the details of how they would be affected - so they can comment.
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Heathrow to work on research into impact of runway on SMEs and their exports (imports?)
Heathrow Airport is to commission a report to look into the impact of a potential 3rd runway on the UK’s SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) community across the country. It will be a consultation by Heathrow itself and a small business support group called Enterprise Nation. The study starts in February, will seek the views of Enterprise Nation’s community of over 65,000 small businesses to gauge how they feel the airport’s development plans will impact them. The aim is for Heathrow to try to prove that its runway will help the UK to export more. (It does not mention imports - which are actually larger by tonnage and by value than exports.) Heathrow says that once completed, the findings will be used to develop an SME growth strategy within Heathrow’s expansion plans, focusing on what can be done to drive SME export growth in line with the Government target of over £1 trillion of UK exports by 2020. John Holland-Kaye made the usual comments including the runway providing "up 40 new trading links and improve domestic connectivity; making it cheaper and more efficient for SMEs to sell their products in fast growing markets around the world,” The findings of the report are due in April. Earlier Heathrow said the value of its air freight in 2014 was £101 billion. But the value of its exports was £48 billion. That is 47.5% of the total – a bit under half. The rest is imports.
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Andrew Tyrie says economic case for a new runway unclear and based on “opaque” information
Andrew Tyrie is the chairman of the influential Commons Treasury select committee. He has now said parliament and the public had been left partly in the dark on the case for a new runway, because the Airports Commission's analysis is not good enough. He said the decision on airport expansion is being taken on the basis of information that was “opaque in a number of important respects.” Mr Tyrie said the robustness of the Airports commission’s conclusions could not be determined from the information in its report. “Parliament has demanded more transparency over the environmental case. At least as important is the economic case.” Mr Tyrie said it was impossible to tell if the potential economic benefits for the UK of the proposals by Heathrow or Gatwick differed significantly from one another, or even if the benefits of building either are significantly different from not building any new runways. "A decision as controversial as this — one that has bedevilled past governments for decades — requires as much transparency as reasonably possible.” Andrew Tyrie has written to George Osborne calling for more details of the calculations that led to the Commission recommending a Heathrow runway. He also called for the process to be moved from the DfT to the Treasury.
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Campaigners plaster Osborne’s constituency with “No 3rd runway” signs, to remind him of the cost to the taxpayer
Campaigners against Heathrow expansion have plastered Knutsford, in George Osborne’s constituency - Tatton in Cheshire - with No Third Runway signs. They put up the signs in Knutsford's main street in the heart of the constituency, and one outside Conservative Party headquarters in the town. A new runway would cost the taxpayer billions of pounds. The date was chosen to coincide with the date on which tax returns must be submitted. The cost to the taxpayer of the infrastructure needed for a 3rd Heathrow runway are expected to be up to £20 billion. Only considering the cost of tunnelling the M25, and associated costs, was considered by the Airports Commission to be £5 billion. Working out how much £5 billion is, divided among the whole UK population, comes to over £77 per person. HACAN has also worked out that £5 billion would buy 83,000 new social homes or thousands of hip replacements, primary or secondary school teachers - or many huge new hospitals. (Figures below) HACAN Chair John Stewart, said, “The billions of pounds of Government money that would be needed for 3rd runway road and rail schemes might even make the Chancellor, George Osborne, think twice about backing it.”
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Compensation debate delays government decision on taxiway works to allow end to Cranford agreement
The Government is still considering Heathrow's appeal over taxiway works needed to enable more departures over Cranford. The taxiway works are needed to enable scheduled easterly take-offs from the northern runway, which were previously banned under the Cranford Agreement. This verbal agreement was made 60 years ago, that planes would not take off towards the east, from the northern runway. On easterly operations, planes all therefore take off on the southern runway, and all planes land on the northern runway. The Cranford Agreement was ended by the government in 2009. But though Heathrow can have a small number of take offs from the northern runway, it needs to do taxiway work, in order to use it fully. Hillingdon Council has refused permission for this work, partly due to air pollution fears, and hence the Heathrow appeal. It Heathrow wins the appeal, and the work is done, there could be roughly 35,000 extra flights a year over Cranford (but no increase in the overall 480,000 flights per year at Heathrow). The ending of the Cranford agreement would mean less noise for some areas, but more for others. The delay is due to debate over compensation, help with relocation, or insulation for affected householders.
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Gatwick Airport Ambassador switches allegiance to Heathrow, and runway bid fails to gain traction with business
Back in early 2015, Emma Jones - the founder of Enterprise Nation - a small business support platform, was working for Gatwick airport and promoting its usefulness for business. She is quoted by Gatwick in March 2015 as saying how many of the UK's 5 million small businesses were looking to ‘Go Global’ and sell their products and services abroad. "To do so requires an easy-access airport and low cost flights to meet new contacts, research markets and source suppliers. It’s for these reasons that I support expansion at Gatwick ...." Then in November, Emma was appointed by David Cameron as one of six leading entrepreneurs to be business ambassadors with a focus on helping more small businesses export their products and services. And she is now working with Heathrow. It has been announced that Heathrow is to carry out a consultation with Enterprise Nation, to explore the impact of expanding Heathrow on the UK’s small and medium sized enterprises (SME). Emma said: "A quarter of all UK exports by value already travel through the airport. It will be interesting to see how an expanded Heathrow could make a real difference at a time when more people than ever before are starting and growing businesses
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Arrivals Review for Gatwick suggests a range of measures to slightly reduce the noise problem
The Arrivals Review, by Bo Redeborn and Graham Lake, has now been published. It has made a series of recommendations for ways in which the aircraft noise problem might be slightly reduced - without limiting the capacity of the airport at all. These recommendations are copied below. The report is wide-ranging, with a lot of issues covered. Below just what is says on four topics (chosen arbitrarily by AirportWatch, to give a taster of the report) is included. These are 1). The decision to move the joining point onto the ILS to be a minimum of 8nm from touchdown, rather than the 10nm used at present. 2). Changing the way Gatwick uses its runway in nil or low wind. 3). Deterring flights being delayed to take-offs occur during the night period, as a Key Performance Indicator. 4). The noise complaints policy needs to be improved. (The review comments: "the current limit of one noise complaint per day per household is considered wholly unacceptable by those residents addressing this issue with the review. It is easy to understand their point of view.") They propose: "that Gatwick should establish an enhanced complaints policy with no daily limit and a fully transparent procedure, as soon as possible, using an on-line form as the sole electronic complaint registration medium." The Review also recommends the establishment of a Noise Management Board (NMB) by summer 2016.
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“Independent Arrivals Review” for Gatwick airport, published by Bo Redeborn and Graham Lake
The Gatwick Airport Arrivals Review, led by Bo Redeborn and Graham Lake, carried out for the airport, has been published. The purpose of the review was: "To make sure everything that can reasonably be done to alleviate issues raised by the local community is being done." and "To understand if the way Gatwick communicates with and provides information to the local community, including the handling of complaints, is fully adequate." The review set out some practical steps to slightly reduce the noise problems being experienced, including increasing CDA, reducing "stacking", setting up an independently chaired noise management board, and improving the noise complaints system - among other things. However, Gatwick's welcome for the review is carefully worded; the normal weasel words are in there. Such as: "Gatwick Airport has welcomed the report and its recommendations and will examine the report’s conclusions with a view to proceeding with as many of them as possible in the shortest practicable time." And "There is no silver bullet that will ever eliminate the problem of aircraft noise but taken together I believe that these measures can make a real difference." And "We want to act as soon as possible on these recommendations so people can start to feel the difference but we cannot do so alone."
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Doubtful logic of imprisoning the Heathrow 13: “The Flight of Reason in the Face of Airport Expansion”
The Heathrow 13, who occupied the far eastern end of Heathrow's northern runway in July, were found guilty by Judge Deborah Wright, at Willesden Magistrates court on 25th January. They will be sentenced on 24th February,and may receive up to the maximum of 3 months in prison. Many believe that the dangers we, and our descendants, face from climate change are so severe that effective action to cut CO2 emissions needs to be taken, fast. A blog in support of the Heathrow 13, and the necessity for rapid action on emissions, says though they caused some expense to the airport - the costs of not acting to curb global CO2 will be massively larger. "This raises an interesting point regarding cost and consequences that doesn't take into account the great looming elephant in the room that is climate change..... In reality there is no bigger crime against our planet than climate change, and no greater injustice than the death and suffering it continues to bring.... The British legal system has it wrong here .... We need to ensure that our governments enforce emissions limits, and that they prioritise health and planetary welfare over perceived profit. Climate change should form a significant part of the dialogue when costs and consequences are assessed." As the "Heathrow 13 said after the verdict, they're 'in it for the long haul.' In terms of the planet, so are we all."