Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Monarch airlines plans to slash workforce by 1,000 jobs, up to 30%, to compete with Ryanair and EasyJet
Up to 1,000 jobs, about one third of its work force, will be cut at Monarch as it tries an overhaul to reposition itself as a low-cost airline competing with easyJet and Ryanair. Monarch is currently controlled by a wealthy Swiss-Italian family, and has been undertaking a strategic review of its business in order to attract new investors. It will drop its charter flights and focus on short-haul scheduled flights. It will cut its fleet of aircraft from 42 to 30. It will keep its focus on holiday destinations like Spain, the Canary Islands and Turkey but add more European cities and skiing destinations. Overall, it will fly more frequently to fewer destinations. They will no longer fly from East Midlands Airport. Monarch has its HQ at Luton airport, is made up of Monarch Airlines, tour operator Cosmos Holidays and an aircraft maintenance division. Monarch's MD said "We're on a trajectory of changing from a charter airline to a scheduled European low-cost carrier." They recently ordered new planes, at the Farnborough air show. This is a £1.75bn order for 30 new Boeing 737 aircraft to be delivered by 2020. They carried about 6.8 million passengers in 2013.
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Mole Valley MP Sir Paul Beresford joins the battle over Gatwick aircraft noise
Sir Paul Beresford, the MP for Mole Valley, has joined the battle against aircraft noise due to Gatwick airport, over the south of the district. Documents for the recent airspace consultation by Gatwick (closed on 15th August) show that one of Gatwick's departure routes was changed in November 2013. This flight path had too tight a turn for modern aircraft (though they can climb faster than older planes) and planes were increasingly straying further north. As a result, the official route, the NPR (noise preferential route) was changed at the end of last year to allow for a wider turn, meaning 7,200 people who were previously unaffected are now under the flight path – including communities in Leigh, the Holmwoods, Brockham, Capel, Betchworth and Beare Green. Sir Paul said: “It’s quite a disaster. People who bought houses under the previous flight path knew what they were buying. People who have bought under the new flight path did not know. ..... the whole thing is totally unacceptable." He is deeply opposed to a 2nd runway, partly due to the thousands of houses that would have to be built, on green field land, to accommodate workers. “They are actually bussing people in from the South Coast to do jobs" already.
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“Grow Heathrow” squatters in Sipson pledge ‘peaceful’ resistance to bailiffs, due to evict them
The remarkable "Grow Heathrow"squatter community, occupying land near Heathrow in protest at the airport's expansion, are expected to be evicted by bailiffs today - or soon. They say they will "peacefully" resist, but a range of non-violent means, including digging tunnels and locking themselves onto items. Grow Heathrow, which includes some 15 families, moved onto a derelict site near Sipson in 2010. The privately owned land had been a wasteland, and an area for anti-social activities. Grow Heathrow cleared rubbish from the site, and created a garden, as well as being as self sufficient in food as possible. They also ran creative and artistic workshops, and a positive and productive community. However, the land owner wants the land back, perhaps for sale to Heathrow airport (their 3rd runway plans would make most of Sipson impossible to live in). Many local people in Sipson have been delighted to have Grow Heathrow as neighbours, rather than a derelict site. The local MP, John McDonnell said he "wholeheartedly" supported the activists. "These are people who not only helped us fight off the third runway, they've actually occupied a site which would have been the sixth terminal for the expanded Heathrow Airport."
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Work on terminal extension at Bristol airport, to increase passenger numbers, to start in September
Bristol airport has announced its plans to increase the size of its terminal building. The airport was granted permission for its £120 million expansion plans more than 3 years ago in the face of fierce opposition from some local residents. The scheme has been put largely on hold as a result of the recession. Parts of the work have been carried out and now the airport is planning to extend its terminal building. The work will start in early September, and they hope it will be completed by summer 2015. Other improvements will eventually include a new hotel and a new public transport interchange. The airport deals with around 6 million passengers per year and the aim is to increase the total to 10 million. The airport now has as many passengers as before the recession. A new £6.5 million central walkway which is designed to ease congestion at peak travel times has just been completed. Bristol airport hopes to get the new generation of jets flying direct to long-haul destinations in Latin America and the Far East.
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Heatwave blamed for record number of complaints about Heathrow noise
Heathrow anti-noise group, HACAN, says nearly 300 people contacted it during July to complain about aircraft noise, more than three times the monthly average. The weather was warm in the south east in July, with a good summer. That means people spent more time outside, and they slept with windows open. That led to even more awareness of aircraft noise than there is in cooler weather. The record number of noise complaints was due to a combination of warm temperatures and a record 6.97 million passengers using Heathrow during July. John Stewart, Chair of HACAN said: "It puts into perspective Heathrow's current consultation on compensation if a 3rd runway is ever built. You simply can't compensate people for the disturbance of planes thundering over as they sit in their gardens trying to enjoy the summer sunshine..... Just imagine how much worse the noise could be with a third runway and at least 250,000 more flights each year using Heathrow." Heathrow itself received 603 complaints about noise in July, only a slight rise on the 578 made during July 2013. They acknowledge that: ..."an airport of the size and importance of Heathrow can have downsides for people living nearby."
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Campaigners in Tunbridge Wells area gear up for legal action over flawed Gatwick consultation
Campaigners against the noise from Gatwick flight paths say that legal action will be taken against the airport's inadequate airspace consultation. Fundraising has already begun to raise some £70,000 estimated to be needed to challenge the case in court, and residents of the areas beneath a proposed narrow corridor, including the High Weald Area of Natural Beauty, Edenbridge and Tunbridge Wells, are preparing to take the airport to task. The proposal affects Gatwick flight paths below 4,000ft and suggests a narrow flight path rather than the current one, which is spread out, although the exact location has not been revealed. There will be one corridor for daytime flights and another for night flights. Adding to a growing list of concerns raised by the consultation, which Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark described as “flawed,” critics are also criticising the decision to remove information about the ownership of Gatwick from the airport’s website. People have been greatly angered by the way Gatwick has conducted its consultation, and communities are working together. The airport is not succeeding in "divide and rule" between communities, to pass the buck of noise misery elsewhere.
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“Scrap new flight paths,” says GACC in their response to Gatwick’s airspace consultation
Gatwick Airport’s consultation on new flight paths ends on Thursday, 14th August. GACC (the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, the well regarded main environmental body concerned with Gatwick, with nearly 100 Borough, District and Parish Councils and environmental groups in the area as members) has submitted a powerful response (GACC AIRSPACE RESPONSE). The consultation has been highly inadequate, giving no flight path detail, and GACC is therefore asking the CAA to declare it void. GACC is demanding that all the new routes should be scrapped. They are asking that Gatwick and NATS should issue a new joint consultation, with detailed maps, showing all proposed flight paths at Gatwick for arrivals and departures up to 10,000 feet. GACC is also asking that the CAA should refuse permission for any new route outside existing NPRs until Gatwick agree to a scheme for compensation. Where flight paths are now concentrated on a single narrow line GACC is calling for compensation to be given to people whose houses are devalued. According to Brendon Sewill: "The law says that, when a new motorway is built, people with houses nearby must receive fair compensation. The same should apply to new motorways in the sky."
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Gatwick PR campaign strategy document, on influencing the key people, accidentally left on train
The plan by Gatwick to lobby “gold, silver and bronze” opinion formers against expansion at Heathrow rival has embarrassingly backfired after a dossier setting out the airport's campaign strategy was left on a train. It was passed to the Sunday Times, which has revealed details of the plans. Gatwick has a “target” lists of opinion formers - politicians, civil servants, business leaders (and allegedly ?? environmentalists) - whom it hopes will put pressure on the Airports Commission and its members. There is a list of around 100 “gold tier” individuals, best able to exercise influence. Gatwick not only wants their target subjects to promote their runway, but also “neutralise the prevailing default bias that we perceive exists in favour of Heathrow”. Gatwick has commissioned a noise study by the CAA undermining Heathrow's implausible claim that fewer people would suffer aircraft noise if it got a 3rd runway and increased flights by some 50%. Unsurprisingly the Gatwick study indicates far more people would be affected by Heathrow noise, with a 3rd runway at full capacity. Heathrow criticised Gatwick for not publishing all the technical documents related to its expansion plans, saying: “It is a shame that the only way anyone can scrutinise Gatwick’s plans is when their executives leave documents on a train.”
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Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark urges Gatwick CEO to “go back to the drawing board” on flight paths
Greg Clark, MP for Tunbridge Wells, has written to Gatwick asking them to reconsider the “flawed” consultation on aircraft flight paths and noise, and urging them to “go back to the drawing board.” He recently (14th July) met Gatwick and NATS staff about the problem. He tells Gatwick that the consultation has not only caused outrage among his constituents for what it proposes but also for how the consultation has been managed. There are serious concerns among local in the area about the "superhighway" overhead, though Gatwick says the increase in noise is just that more Brits are flying abroad this summer, (on cheap flights for holidays). Greg says that the noise disturbance has considerably worsened recently and many have been "disturbed and dismayed by much higher levels of aircraft noise this summer.” He adds: "... the consultation has been unfit for its purpose.....(its) ..purpose was to have been to gauge reaction to particular precise routes. Yet the exact route has not been disclosed to the public. Instead, a wide swathe has been marked on maps which make it exceedingly difficult to work out what is the exact route proposed.....the proposals being put forward (are) too ill defined to comment properly.” He believes the misguided proposal to increase flights over Langton Green, Speldhurst, Rusthall and Bidborough should be rethought.
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Crispin Blunt MP investigates recent increase in aircraft noise in Redhill area due to changes to Gatwick flight paths
Following a recent increase in complaints of increased aircraft noise over Redhill and Earlswood, MP for Reigate, Crispin Blunt has visited Gatwick Airport for an explanation. He has also met Heathrow and the MP for Mole Valley, Sir Paul Beresford, to identify the cause of the increase in over-flight noise, and investigate potential remedies and future trends in aircraft noise patterns. Crispin has set out a clear explanation of what has been happening, and why people in his constituency are now being affected. Gatwick is trying out new routing patterns, that might come into effect in 18 months time, by which flights take off in a similar pattern as before, but follow a much narrower air corridor over Redhill and Earlswood. This has reduced the area in which people are overflown, but concentrated the amount of noise that a smaller number of residents on the narrower flight path have to suffer. Some Gatwick departure aircraft are being held low by NATS over Redhill, to avoid aircraft stacking prior to landing at Heathrow. These are tracking north closer to Redhill than before. This is part of the FAS (Future Airspace Strategy) which is being worked on, and which will not be completed till 2019. By then, the conflict with the Heathrow routes may be resolved.