Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Noise demonstration blasts 80 dB recorded plane noise outside home of Frankfurt airport CEO for 2 hours
As a protest against the level of aircraft noise that people living near Frankfurt airport are exposed to - especially since the opening of the 4th runway in October 2011 - people have bombarded the home of the airport Chief Executive, Stefan Schulte, with noise. Citizens in a convoy of about 40 cars parked outside his house, in a small town north of Frankfurt,. They set up loudspeakers and ghetto blasters in their cars, and rolled down the car windows in order to blast out noise, at about 80 decibels. That is loudest the police allowed them to use. The noise went on for two hours, with two breaks. The protest was by people living in areas across Rhein-Main who are badly affected by noise from flight paths. The noise they used was of planes, recorded at Niederrad Sachsenhausen, which is an area about 3 km to the north east of the airport. After some time of the noise bombardment, the CEO's automatic garage door opened, and he set off in his car for work at the airport. One of the protesters commented that they did not understand how Herr Schulte is able to say society must just endure such levels of noise. Asked if the protest had been successful, one protester commented that it had been if the media and more members of the public are aware of the issue.
Click here to view full story...
DHL shrugs off threat from Heathrow Hub to move forward with new Poyle headquarters
The local paper, Colnbrook Views, reports that despite the possibility that the Airports Commission just might recommend that Heathrow builds a 3rd runway using the Heathrow Hub plan (northern runway extended to the west), DHL are taking the (small?) risk and planning a massive new distribution hub on the run-down Poyle estate, almost in the path of the runway. The application considered at a recent Planning meeting. Colnbrook Views says DHL is moving its headquarters to Poyle, from Hounslow. Property agents acting for DHL have secured a large chunk of the Poyle trading estate, which currently contains 17 partly unoccupied units. The plan is to build a vast 21,373 square metre facility with a 5-storey warehouse and distribution hub, plus HQ. There will be a 24x7 parcel delivery hub, and 60 HGV loading bays plus 585 car parking spaces. And nearly 700 new jobs. DHL acknowledges the risk as well as the benefits of its close proximity to Heathrow. Both its Colnbrook Lakeside and Poyle headquarters will be at risk from both the north-west runway, or the extended northern runway options. DHL's Board say they have taken the risks into account and “DHL are fully committed to this site as it is ideally located...." They hope the new warehouse will be completed in April 2016.
Click here to view full story...
Airports report will fail to come up with long-term strategy, warns Justine Greening
Justine Greening, MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, has warned that the Airports Commission’s long-awaited final report (expected probably in June, before Sir Howard leaves for RBS?) will fail to provide the long-term aviation strategy Britain needs. Justine Greening is deeply opposed to a new Heathrow runway, knowing how miserable it would make life for thousands of her constituents, under flight paths - so she backs a runway at Gatwick instead. She considers a Gatwick runway would provide a “competitive capacity stop-gap”. But she says Gatwick "is not a substitute for the longer term aviation strategy" that she considers Britain needs. In her submission to the Airports Commission consultation, Ms Greening condemned the “incremental, ‘next step’ approach being consulted on”, warning it “continues the short-termism and lack of strategic vision to date, which has led to the capacity constraints we see today”. She goes on to say a 4th Heathrow runway would lead to an overall decrease in airspace capacity over London because it would take up space for flights landing at other London airports. So she is thinking of a new Boris Island airport in the Thames estuary ...?
Click here to view full story...
Heathrow tells Commission its devastating impact on local villages will have a “neutral” effect on community cohesion
Heathrow's submission to the Airports Commission attempts to say that the impact on local communities, the Heathrow Villages in particular, would be "neutral". The Commission has considered it, rightly, to be "adverse" - which is a fairly staggering understatement anyway. The local paper, Colnbrook Views, is understandably stunned by this. They say "Heathrow has actually suggested to Sir Howard that he is wrong to say that losing large tracts of the village to tarmac while subjecting an untold number to as yet unquantified noise and air pollution is actually, on balance, going to be a good thing. ....Far from being an “adverse” effect on the village, Sir Howard Davies has been told to rethink his conclusion and find instead that mitigations proposed by the airport will “set remaining communities on a new footing underpinned by facility provision and other community support mechanisms”. The Heathrow logic's glaring inadequacy is shown in their statement: ”We do acknowledge that the effect of the airport expansion on Harmondsworth and Sipson would be considerable and that Longford would be removed completely. However, we do believe that, even for these communities, although the local dynamic may change, there will still be community cohesion for those that wish to continue living in these villages. (sic .... Longford would be removed .... but Heathrow says it will be good for people still living there ??)
Click here to view full story...
Prestwick Airport taxpayer bailout doubles to £40 million by 2021/22
Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of covering up the true cost to the taxpayer of buying Prestwick Airport after she kept secret the existence of a new estimate predicting it would almost double to £40 million. An Audit Scotland investigation into the purchase found that a revised business plan produced in May last year forecast that public loans to loss-making Prestwick would reach £39.6 million by 2021/22. Ms Sturgeon did not tell MSPs that the predicted cost had increased from the original estimate of £21.3 million when she gave evidence to a Holyrood inquiry the following month. She also did not reveal that the passenger forecasts for the first 5 years had been dramatically cut. Labour are complaining about the handling of the airport problem by the SNP. Prestwick was losing £800,000 per month, and passenger numbers had more than halved to 1.1 million between 2007 and 2013. It was on the market for 18 months but no private buyer emerged. The Scottish government bought it for £1 hoping to protect 3,200 jobs and safeguard a “strategic” asset. So far the government has handed over £9 million and have committed to provide a further £16.2 million by the end of March 2016.
Click here to view full story...
Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, says Heathrow 3rd runway permission “cannot be bought”
Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary and MP for Runnymede & Weybridge, has said that Heathrow will not be able to "buy" planning permission for a proposed runway expansion. His comment came after Heathrow had said it could contribute to a £300m flood relief scheme, if it was allowed to expand. The government will pay £220 million for the scheme, with the RFCC paying £30 million - leaving an extra £50 million needs to be raised - from business etc..Mr Hammond said Heathrow should join other local businesses in helping to fund new River Thames defences. Heathrow claims that expansion "would allow environmental issues to be addressed." (Unclear logic why it has to be allowed to expand before it can do so ...?) Heathrow would directly benefit from the river defence scheme. Mr Hammond commented: "We've got a long tradition in this county that we don't allow people to buy planning permission for controversial schemes simply by offering money.....As a very large local business that was negatively affected by the disruption in the area last February I would expect Heathrow and businesses around Heathrow to be among those we ask for a contribution."
Click here to view full story...
Uncertainties about if, and how comprehensively, Gatwick is logging aircraft noise complaints
Gatwick airport (and Heathrow too) were inundated with noise complaint since trialling new concentrated flight paths last year. However, there remains uncertainty about how the Gatwick process for counting and recording complaints. People who have felt the need to complain about numerous noisy flights have been informed that they can log no more than one complaint per day. People have been told they cannot use a "template" for their complaints, even though the airport's own reporting form is a template. The airport has now been asked to explain just what constitutes a "template" is, in their opinion. And how does this differ from being a bone fide 'enquiry' via email or letter? People are asking what has happened to the numerous complaints they have made over the past year or so, since the flight paths were altered. How many of these have been recorded, and how many have been dismissed? The lack of clarity means yet further reduction in trust in the airport by affected communities. There is concern that Gatwick gets to self regulate on the matter of collation of complaint data, which is seen as flawed. Gatwick downplays the extent of the problem saying "Complaint statistics can be extremely difficult to interpret as a large proportion of all our complaints originate from a very small group of individuals."
Click here to view full story...
Heathrow claims “larger, fuller, quieter” planes – but load factor still just 70 – 76%
Heathrow says it had its busiest ever January with 5.45 million passengers travelling through the airport’s terminals. But the figures mask a decline in the number of flight movements and planes are still flying on average one third empty. There were about 37,130 air transport movements (commercial flights) using Heathrow in January, compared to 4 earlier years when there were over 39,000 flights. The reason why Heathrow can increase its number of passengers, with fewer flights is having more passengers per flight. Heathrow's own figures show a lower number of flights at the airport contrasts with its claims that lack of hub capacity is "a ticking time bomb". While the central premise of the airport’s drive for expansion has been its claim that it is 98% full, aircraft movements actually fell by 0.8% last month compared to January 2014. Details of Passengers by Market show growth in numbers of passengers to and from emerging economies. However, overall the load factor (the % of the seats in the plane are used) are far lower at Heathrow than many other UK airports, with 70.1% in January. Over recent months, the load factor was 71.3% in November, and about 76% in October and December 2014. It was 76.4% for the full year 2013 and 75% in 2012. Heathrow will say, if there is a fall in numbers, that this means it is losing ground to other hubs, and if they rise, it reinforces their case for new hub capacity.
Click here to view full story...
Chairman of Gatwick GATCOM writes to Stewart Wingate, on withdrawal of routes with “detrimental effect”
The Chairman of GATCOM (the Gatwick Airport Consultative Committee) has written to Stewart Wingate, to try to get some clarification for his committee, on PRNAV departure SID implementation at Gatwick. GAL had undertaken to revert to conventional navigation and the withdrawal of P-RNAV where there has been a "detrimental effect" on local communities. GATCOM is disappointed that GAL does not appear to be honouring this undertaking and many members and local communities feel badly let down, particularly in view of the negative effects some of them are now experiencing. GATCOM is asking Gatwick Airport to withdraw a/any P-RNAV SID where it is deemed that there has been a detrimental effect on local communities and revert to conventional navigation at the earliest opportunity. They are asking Mr Wingate quite how such "detrimental effect" has been quantified in the CAA’s airspace change process. GATCOM says it is important that the way in which the Government’s policy of minimising the number of people impacted by aircraft overflight and noise is fully understood and measures put in place to fully compensate those suffering significant disturbance as a result of changes for loss of property value. Also GATCOM want the CEO of the CAA, Andrew Haines, to attend a meeting of GATCOM to explain his interpretation of the present position to members.
Click here to view full story...
Defra data on NO2 emissions show Heathrow would breach limits by 2030, even with just 2 runways – let alone 3
Defra data showing 50 UK roads with highest nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels suggests the A4 road, that runs along the north border of Heathrow Airport, will still exceed EU air pollution limits by 2030 - even without the addition of a 3rd runway. The Defra figures (obtained by Clean Air in London by an FoI request) show that, in 2030, after the A501 (Marylebone Road in London) the A4 will be the road with the 2nd highest NO2 concentrations in the UK - with just two runways. A 3rd runway would inevitably lead to an increase in the number of passengers and associated road traffic coming, including freight. Air pollution is therefore likely to rise, and substantially. Environmental NGO the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) says a 3rd runway at Heathrow “now looks impossible” before 2030, due to the projections of the air quality impacts of expansion. And “Questions must be asked about the Airports Commission’s decision not to carry out detailed modelling of the air quality impact of a new runway prior to publishing its final consultation.” Heathrow produced a bland statement about "managing our environmental responsibilities" which did not address the problem - hoping to persuade passengers not to travel to/from the airport by car. And the air freight? The UK is currently facing legal action from the European Commission due to its failure to meet EU annual average NO2 limits.