Airport News
Below are news items relating to specific airports
Thousands of responses against Farnborough’s airspace change proposals – especially from gliding clubs
12 MPs, South Downs National Park Authority, Goodwood Airfield and more than 3,000 people have responded to Farnborough airport’s proposal to control a vast amount of airspace across the South Downs. The airspace consultation period is coming to an end, and there has been a high level of opposition. The proposal plans to lower and narrow the airspace spanning West Sussex, South Downs National Park and Hampshire, would allow private aircraft to make uninterrupted journeys across the designated area. Gliding clubs are very unhappy about the plans as the areas of sky available for them would change. They say the changes could ‘kill’ the activities of the club. They also claimed that this move will force other aircraft to fly lower increasing aircraft noise for residents living in the South Downs. Also that the proposals could significantly increase the risks of mid-air collisions by forcing general aviation aircraft to fly in much smaller ‘corridors’ of free airspace. “These proposals are just like a limousine company buying up two lanes of the M25 exclusively for the benefit of the wealthy and famous."
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Gatwick airport announces first profits for years and returns for its investors … UK tax?
Gatwick airport has announced its results for the year to 31st March 2014. It has made a profit, for the first time in 4 years. Gatwick says its passenger numbers reached 35.9 million in 2013/14 (4.8% up on 2012/13). Their turnover is up 10.2% to £593.7 million and EBITDA is up 14.2% to £259.4 million, with a resulting profit of £57.5 million. This compared to a loss in the financial year ending 31 March 2013 of £29.1 million. The airport has spent a great deal improving the airport, and so made losses - and paid no tax to the UK government for years. Gatwick says their investments and more marketing is being effective in attracting more passengers. It now has more aircraft movements at peak times (a cause of the noise nuisance being caused from new flight paths). Gatwick now claims 20% are travelling on business, largely on EasyJet. The figure was 17.5% in 2012. Gatwick says it will now be paying dividends to its investors, though it has not in recent years. It expects to pay £125m to investors in the current financial year, £65m return in the 2015/16 financial year and £60m in 2016/17. [Maybe also pay some UK tax?]
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Horley Town Council announces open public meeting to be held on Gatwick 2nd runway proposals
Horley Town Council has announced it is to hold what promises to be a packed open public meeting on 18th July on the proposals for a 2nd runway at Gatwick. The town council has set the public meeting, entitled “Do You Want a Second Runway at Gatwick?” - the first such meeting to be organised by the council for some 6 years and its first on the 2nd runway proposals. For many, the runway proposals are the major single issue facing the town and the area today. The 3 speakers will be Alastair McDermid, the Airports Commission director for Gatwick; Peter Barclay of the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC); and a representative of the Gatwick Diamond Business forum. Following the presentations, the meeting will split into smaller groups, headed by facilitators, to look at more specific areas and focus on residents' concerns - followed by questions. There will not be a resolution put, or a vote, at the meeting. The chairman of the council's 2nd runway sub-committee said if enough people want to attend, a 2nd meeting may be necessary.The council may send out a questionnaire to all households.
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Stobart has pledged a subsidy of £250,000 per year to Aer Arran, to try to make Carlisle airport viable
Transport giant Stobart has ploughed an extra £250,000 a year into its plans to redevelop Carlisle airport. They have lodged new documents with the city council, pledging the money to be paid as a subsidy to airline operators - to ensure that the airport is financially sound. Aer Arann – now known as Stobart Air, which Stobart has a 45% stake in – has confirmed it is interested in running a service (to Dublin and Southend). This comes after the High Court quashed planning permission granted by the city council in March, due to a lack of detail about the venture’s commercial viability, which the cash injection aims to address. Stobart intends to "to grow Stobart Air significantly, following the completion of development at London Southend Airport” [LSA]. "Once planning approval is obtained for the developments at Carlisle Lake District Airport, Stobart Air would invest in new airport infrastructure and facilities..." Stobart plans to plough £20.36m into a new distribution centre at Carlisle airport. Carlisle council believed in 2011 there was no evidence that passenger flights predicted by Stobart Group would ever materialise.
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New study on noise, including aircraft noise, says health of residents of Montreal under threat
A study in Montreal, Quebec, by the public health department, shows that Montrealers near highways, rail yards and Trudeau airport are most likely to be exposed to excessive noise. Over a two-week period in August 2010, noise levels were measured every 2 minutes at a range of locations. During the day, two-thirds of the spots were above the WHO’s suggested maximum. The negative effects include annoyance (inability to concentrate, occasionally being awoken, difficulty carrying on conversations); sleep disturbance (frequent waking, which can affect health); and, most seriously, cardiovascular disease, especially high blood pressure, which increases as people are exposed to noise. The data will be assessed by a new noise-management committee looking into noise sources, including the airport. Several measures will be looked at, including re-zoning, and new soundproofing standards. Data needs to be gathered on whether the increase in planes outweighs the tiny improvements in the noise per plane. Campaigners Les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau say flight altitudes over Montreal should be raised and there should be a “genuine night-time (flight) curfew,” not just noise insulation.
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Convoluted Brussels coalition and flightpath politics cause public furore
Thousands of people in Brussels are up in arms about a new overflight plan that started on 6th February, causing parts of the city subject to the thundering noise of planes using Brussels airport. The Belgian government has only a couple of weeks left to find a solution for a problem that dates back many, many years. As the airport is close to densely populated parts of the city, its flight paths would always over-fly a lot of people. The political choices of who should have to suffer the noise are complicated. Should the burden of the noise be shared between various areas? The flight path change is reported to be because, with the May elections this year, Melchior Wathelet (Sec of State for Environment, Energy, Mobility etc) of the Francophone Christian Democtrats (cdH) decided to do a political favour for the party's vice prime minister, Joelle Milquet, by tweaking the flight paths over some municipalities, to help with votes. The Wathelet Plan decision can be blocked, under the constitution, for 60 days. That ends at the start of July. It is likely to be the out-going coalition that makes the decision. Lots of politics ..... parties will assess how the vote affects their political chances ....
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Boris gets another report produced, pushing potential benefits of more flights to regions from his estuary mega-airport
Boris' Transport for London has produced a report (done for them by York Aviation and Oxford Economics) which pushes his Thames Estuary airport plan. The report "Making Connections" is angled to get support from the regions by saying Heathrow cannot, even with a 3rd runway, cope with demand from all the regional airports. It says that only Boris' 4 runway new airport could give all the regions lots of connecting flights. The report anticipates 49 more regional flights per day than with a Heathrow 3rd runway. There are the usual figures of the amount of economic growth, and the number of jobs, that this monster airport in the estuary would produce. It says there would be "a £2.1 billion economic stimulus for the regional economies by 2050 in the form of increased Gross Value Added (GVA) and over 17,550 new jobs." A York Aviation spokesperson said a 3rd Heathrow runway "would not support any new [regional] routes due to commercial pressures on airlines”. Boris and his backers always conveniently ignore the inconvenient fact that the UK cannot fit two extra runways into our climate targets.
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Sydney Airport targets to limit flights over parts of the city not met, and have never been met
Sydney Airport has failed to meet its aircraft noise-sharing targets every year since they were set 17 years ago, with suburbs immediately to its north bearing up to double the number of planes set by the airport's operating plan as ''fair''. Under targets set in Sydney Airport's long-term operating plan, some suburbs are meant to have 17% of aircraft movements overhead. Instead, those areas have had more than 30% of flights every month for the past 3 years, and regularly have more than double the target. The number of aircraft movements is increasing, and the number of larger planes is also rising. Sydney Airport has 2 north-south runways, as well as an east-west runway. During busy times planes are routed over suburbs south and north of the airport, rather than east-west. Larger planes can only use the longer north-south runway. In 1996, in response to growing public pressure over aircraft noise, the government regulator set targets for 55% of movements to go south of the airport, 13% to the east, 15% to the west, and 17% to the north. Local group, No Aircraft Noise, said the noise-sharing targets were a political fix designed to calm public anger, and it was known the targets could never be met.
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Belgians are asking Canadian pension fund to put pressure on government to reverse Brussels flight path changes
Brussels airport is managed by the Brussels Airport Company, which is 39% owned of Canadian pension fund Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) which is the 2nd largest manager of institutional funds in Canada. It invests the pension funds of 307,000 active and retired teachers working in public schools in Ontario. Now a group of Belgians are asking administrators of OTPP to put pressure on the Belgian authorities to reverse the decision, taken in February, to change flight paths over central Brussels. Opponents of the flight path changes say the new routes triple the number of people affected by aircraft noise. The campaign, "Pas Question!" say: "Imagine that the (Canadian) Federal Government directed 50% of the planes taking off from Toronto airport over the city center. And everything to relieve the periphery! " They believe it is a political decision, and must be reversed by politicians. The government has indicated it may be open to revision of the plans, but rejects the idea of returning to the old flight paths.
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Tunbridge Wells & Bidborough residents, and High Weald parishes unite against Gatwick runway plans
The threat of a 2nd Gatwick runway is a very real one for people living under existing flight paths, and in areas where new flight paths are likely. Now villages 20 miles out to the east from Gatwick have formed an action group to campaign against Gatwick's expansion plans. The Parish Councils of Chiddingstone, Hever, Leigh and Penshurst have formed the High Weald Parish Councils Aviation Action Group. There is also a new, and highly active, group at Bidborough, BEAG. At a meeting on 17th June in Tunbridge Wells the noise problem of existing an new flights paths was discussed. Local people fear a new Gatwick ‘Superhighway’ route across their area, with some 350 planes per day – all the aircraft arriving at Gatwick from the south – in a concentrated stream above West Kent most of the year from 06:30-11:30 hours without respite. There is real opposition to the noise nuisance, and reduction in the quality of life, of thousands from the flight paths. There is also real concern about the noise's negative impact on the tourism industries of West Kent - such as the unique and historically valuable Hever Castle and Penshurst Place.