Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Boris Johnson’s opposition to Heathrow could derail his bid to be Uxbridge MP
Boris Johnson has announced plans to contest a seat in the summer 2015 election and is understood to be in talks to stand in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. He has been included on the official Conservative candidates list, allowing him to stand in Uxbridge. However, the constituency in west London contains thousands of voters who work at Heathrow who would fiercely oppose Mr Johnson’s candidacy. Boris has described a Heathrow 3rd runway as "bollocks", and also said he will continue to campaign against high-speed rail. Boris believes, along with his completely unworkable and impossibly environmentally damaging Thames estuary airport scheme, that Heathrow should be close down and turned into a “tech city” with housing areas, a university etc. The Labour candidate running in the Uxbridge constituency opposes closing Heathrow and will try and turn any contest with Boris into a debate about Heathrow. A body of opinion believes Boris will have difficulty in winning in Uxbridge unless he reverses his call for Heathrow to be closed. Boris has described Heathrow as “a dead duck” and said he will “fight to my dying breath” to halt a 3rd runway.
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Francis Maude says it is intolerable for some people to be very intensively overflown, “to the extreme detriment of their lives”
Francis Maude, MP for Horsham, wrote that the ADNID trial has been almost six months of intense misery for many of his constituents. He has been liaising with the airport, the CAA, NATS and the Secretary of State for Transport on the trial and its impacts. Gatwick is aiming to increase potential take-offs at peak times from 55 to 58 per hour from its single runway, and to do this it claims to need more focused flight paths, allowed by better aircraft on-board navigation systems. Gatwick says it needs to use new NPR routes, rather than the established ones. Government policy is that the decision about new routes, which rests with the Secretary of State, will be based on reducing the numbers of people overflown, in a simple headcount exercise. But there are local circumstances which allow for other considerations - background noise, altitude above sea level - to be taken into account, and Francis says "this is our best hope of seeing off this threat." Sharing of the noise misery burden may be tolerable but " What is intolerable is when fewer people are very intensively overflown, to the extreme detriment of their lives." He adds: "I have sought reassurance that the consultation being run by IpsosMori will be independently scrutinised by the CAA, using the raw data if necessary."
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Birmingham delighted to get daily flight to India, largely for tourism and VFR
Birmingham airport’s is encouraged by a decision by Air India to increase the number of flights between Birmingham, Delhi and Amritsa from 4 per week to 7 per week. This will start from November, when its 18th Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft is inducted into service. Birmingham has now had direct flights to India for one year, after having none for 5 years. Though some passengers are on business, the majority are tourists and people visiting friends and relatives in India. Having three more flights per week will mean an extra 1,500 seats a week, as the Air India Dreamliners have 256 seats (256 x 3 x 2 = 1,5360. Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport’s Chief Executive, said “The West Midlands receives more foreign direct investment from India than any other region outside of London and Birmingham’s VFR (visiting friends and family) market grew by 71% in 2013, now attracting more visitors from India than any English city other than London." The runway extension, that opened in April, is enabling more flights to longer haul destinations. The flight path trials, due to the runway extension, are causing real concern and distress to those south of the airport, now finding themselves seriously overflown.
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Thousands of Londoners would hear a plane “every 90 seconds for 13 hours/day” if Heathrow 3rd runway is built
Heathrow knows it cannot get a 3rd runway unless it can somehow persuade people that there will be less noise from 50% more aircraft than there is today. In order to try and achieve this miraculous result, some massaging of figures is needed, and some clever use of statistics. In reality, it is likely that with three runways, tens of thousands of people in west London would lose half of their daily “noise-free” period (from runway alternation - switching runway at 3pm). HACAN, the group campaigning against the noise impacts of Heathrow, and thus against Heathrow's expansion, say some areas would have planes passing overhead every 90 seconds for a “nightmarish” 13 hours a day. HACAN discovered the noise data “buried” in an appendix to one of Heathrow’s reports sent to the Airports Commission and “slipped out” before the holidays. It appears likely that residents under the southern flight path, including areas such as Richmond, would lose almost 4 hours of their 8 hour quiet period. People living under the current northern flight path would continue to get about 8 hours of respite but HACAN claim this would be spoiled for many because they would hear aircraft from one of the two other runways on either side of them.
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Gatwick CEO says planes over Reigate “could be from Heathrow” …? Just as likely to be Gatwick ….
Many residents living near Reigate have recently reported increased aircraft noise. This may have been due to planes arriving at, or departing from, Heathrow. That is the claim from Gatwick Airport's chief executive Stewart Wingate, who has assured residents the offending noise is not due to flight path changes at his airport. The Heathrow "WebTrak" website shows (approximately - not 100% accurate) the positions and tracks of aircraft arriving at, or departing from, Heathrow. The Gatwick "Casper" website also shows the tracks of planes arriving at, or departing from, Gatwick. Both these websites show aircraft in the vicinity of Reigate. The WebTrak record suggests planes stacking, waiting to land at Heathrow, at about 9,000 to 9,600 feet. Planes taking off from Heathrow, flying near Reigate, would be a bit higher than 6,000 feet. Planes taking off from Gatwick are also shown in the area close to Gatwick, at 5,500 to 6,000 feet. So it appears people in the area south of Reigate may be subjected to planes using both airports.
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Heathrow campaign, HACAN, will not be taking part in the consultation on noise compensation, for a 3rd runway
On 21st July Heathrow published a consultation on how it hopes to persuade thousands of people, who would be badly affected by increased aircraft noise from its operations, to accept money as compensation. It is offering £550 million, if it is allowed to build a 3rd runway, in various schemes. The £550 million is a one-off, not an annual sum. The aim is to buy off opposition. The existence of the consultation aims to convey the impression that a 3rd runway is inevitable, and that Heathrow is being stunningly generous. Neither is true. The community group dealing in particular with noise due to Heathrow, HACAN, has had numerous complaints from residents who are furious about the assumptions being made in the Heathrow consultation. They do not like being steamrollered into discussions about compensation for something they deeply oppose. HACAN will not be taking any part in the consultation, and not encouraging its members to do so. They feel the compensation discussion "puts the cart before the horse". Providing Heathrow with assistance in how best to win over residents, whose quality of life will be reduced by a new runway, is not in the interests of those overflown, now or in the future.
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SSE welcome Stansted’s Development Plan consultation as an opportunity for an open debate on its one-runway future
Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) is calling for an open debate about Stansted Airport's long term plan, due to be published later this week. Manchester Airport Group ('MAG'), which bought Stansted from BAA 18 months ago, will publish its 'Sustainable Development Plan' (SDP) for Stansted, setting out what it intends to do with the airport over the next 20-25 years. The SDP will initially be published as a draft for consultation, with a final version of the plan expected towards the end of the year. SSE welcomes this initiative by MAG and wants to encourage maximum public participation in the consultation process. It is understood that the SDP will be based on Stansted remaining as a single runway airport. This will be a great relief for the vast majority of local residents but it still leaves scope - within Stansted's existing planning permission - for the airport to handle almost twice as many passengers and twice as many flights as it does today. (Up to 35 million passengers and 264,000 flights). SSE wants to see a gradual phasing out of night flights at Stansted and the return of some 270 homes bought near the airport, for a 2nd runway, to private ownership.
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Caroline Spelman MP calls for end to Birmingham flight path trials
Meriden MP Caroline Spelman has demanded the Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, calls a halt to Birmingham Airport's flight path trials across her borough, since 1st May, after being handed a petition with over 1,500 signatures. The petition, which has been signed by a number of local action groups, calls on Transport Secretary to intervene in the trial following complaints over noise. The airport has been trialling two options for new flight paths for the past 6 months as part of the new runway extension. But residents claim the aircraft are not sticking to the routes accurately, causing planes to fly closer to their homes. Caroline Spelman says the fact the planes are not flying the accurate routes has invalidated the trial, and a review is needed of what has gone wrong. ". If the airport plumps for a compromise route which is different from the original two options there would need to be a further consultation." The airport claims its new runway extension, as well as creating distressing noise and disruption for several thousand people, will " deliver global connectivity and thousands of new jobs in the future for local people." The CAA will finally decide on the flight paths.
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Gatwick’s consultation shows some 85% of respondents oppose a 2nd Gatwick runway
Gatwick Airport held a consultation over April and May 2014, to try to get backing for its plans for a 2nd runway, and the option the airport wants - the wide spaced option with the runway used for both arrivals and departures. This has always been what the airport wanted, and the proposal the Airports Commission short listed. The consultation gave two options, that the airport did not want and has no interest in. The consultation also initially had no means for any respondent to express their opposition to any new Gatwick runway, but eventually a "none of these options" box was added - difficult to locate, far into the document. The survey results are now out. They are deeply irritating to the airport, as they show huge opposition to any runway. Of about 7,700 respondents, well over 80% said NO. Of the 7,700 or so, only 733 backed Option 3 ( the runway option Gatwick wants) and 2,165 did not want a runway at all. 4,003 responses came through the Woodland Trust and these are being discounted, unjustifiably, as though part of an e-campaign, many contained specific comments made by the respondents. Taking all the responses for no runway, they amount to some 85% of the total. Even discounting the Woodland Trust responses, 66% opposed a new runway.
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Germany’s DFS air traffic service beats NATS to control Gatwick flights below 4,000 feet
Gatwick Airport's air traffic control services are to be provided by a German state-owned company from next year. A 10-year contract for services below 4,000ft around the airport has been given to Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS). The service has been provided for more than 30 years by Hampshire-based NATS, which will continue to navigate air traffic above 4,000ft. NATS said it was disappointed, but it was too early to say if jobs would go. DFS is wholly owned by the German government and operates 16 airports in Germany as well as providing air traffic control across the country. Gatwick management said it was planned that, after a period of transition, DFS would start work in October 2015. The successful bid by DFS comes a year after a UK pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) beat DFS for a 20% stake in NATS. The Airline Group, which had owned 42% of NATS before the sale, chose USS rather than DFS to buy the 20%, which meant that a partial de-facto merger between two of the largest European Air Navigation Service Providers did not happen.