General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Heathrow noise ‘hinders pupils’ reading progress’
Children living under the Heathrow flight path are suffering two-month lags in their reading development as a result of aircraft noise. Hounslow council says pupils in the borough have to put up with “continual disruption”, and warned the problem will worsen if the airport expands to three or more runways. Around 40 schools are directly under the Heathrow flight paths with planes landing every 90 seconds or so much of the day. The council cites an international study by London University into aircraft noise which found it led to a “significant impairment” in reading development, as well as affecting long-term memory and motivation. As well as a 2-month delay in reading, the children's education is suffering from the continual disruption from low-flying jets. If schools don't have triple glazing the interruptions to lessons can be relentless. One school near the airport has had shelters installed in the playground so children can escape the noise. A 2010 ECRD study suggested that chronic aircraft noise has a deleterious effect on memory, sustained attention, reading comprehension and reading ability.
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Airlines like Emirates keen to fly from regional airports – reducing future demand at Heathrow and Gatwick
Heathrow Airport has been saying recently that, though it is desperate to get a third runway, even they realise that there is not the demand for a 4th runway. The DfT has consistently over-estimated the amount of passenger demand over the last decade. In reality, passengers from parts of the UK other than the south east can get long haul flights from regional airports. The UK Vice President of Emirates says he wants to expand flights from UK's regional airports, rather than Heathrow or Gatwick, and has a direct flight from Newcastle to Dubai, for transfers on from there. With that happening more and more in future, the south east airports' dreams for expansion in the south east, requiring a massive hub airport, look less and less probable. Forecasts more than a few years ahead are based on so many uncertainties and unknowns as to be almost without value. Making best use of existing airports is more efficient than grandiose new infrastructure projects which run the risk of being white elephants. Had a second Stansted runway been built by 2012, it would now be standing idle.
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Comments on the Government’s new Aviation Policy Framework from GACC, SSE, HACAN and others (they are not impressed)
Comments from NGOs and airport groups to publication of the government's new Aviation Policy Framework document on Friday have not been complimentary. GACC at Gatwick said it was "turgid, vapid and verbose" and is so wordy because "it contains a paean of praise for the aviation industry which reads as if written by a PR agency, and most of which could be applied equally to any other industry." Also GACC is disappointed that "several measures to make life better for local residents have been dropped." SSE at Stansted said "the new framework is noticeably lacking in any meaningful measures to control noise, air pollution or climate change, adding to condemnation by airport community campaign groups and national environmental organisations across the UK. Top of the list of failures is the framework's adherence to discredited methods for measuring aircraft noise disturbance - not least in rural areas with low background noise". There are more comments from HACAN, WWF, FoE and AEF.
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Roof of house in Old Windsor damaged by vortex from plane landing at Heathrow
Damage to roofs of homes under flight paths is not uncommon and many incidents happen each year. This time a house in Old Windsor was affected, by a vortex created by a plane using Heathrow, with a number of tiles sucked off the roof leaving holes, open to the elements. The damage is done by a vortex of air, which is churned up by the plane passing overhead, and then descends to ground level. Heathrow Airport said "Only one in 10,000 flights results in a vortex" (well, they mean results in a vortex that causes damage to property). Heathrow sent out a team to fix it promptly - airports are always keen to do this, to limit negative publicity from the incident. This house is the home of a grandmother, who naturally was very alarmed and frightened by the incident, which the first though was a large explosion. Luckily nobody was hurt this time by falling tiles or debris. Some living under flight paths, where there is often vortex damage, fear that in due course there will be injuries.
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Government publishes its Aviation Policy Framework; disappointingly weak and vague on noise, climate change, air pollution …
The government has published its Aviation Policy Framework, which takes the place of the Air Transport White Paper of 2003. There is not much to celebrate in it. It remains curiously uncritical of the alleged economic benefits of air travel to the UK. It is lamentably weak on climate change, weak on noise, weak on air pollution and more of a discussion document than a policy document. Friends of the Earth commented that it "could have been written by the aviation industry - it encourages more flying, while only requiring 'cost-effective' action to tackle climate change." The Framework sets out only general aspirations for aviation to make a "significant contribution to tackling" its climate change challenge, without indicating any national policy measures that might achieve this aim. On noise the Framework acknowledges some of the shortcomings of the current system for monitoring community annoyance from aircraft noise and the 57Leq threshold choice, yet makes no specific proposals for revising it or recognising that annoyance is caused at lower noise levels. The Framework provides scant and inadequate policy guidance on environmental impacts of aviation for the Airports Commission, which needs this information to inform its decisions this year on airport capacity.
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UK aerospace industry receives £1 billion investment from Government over 7 year period
On 18th March the Government's Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) announced that the aerospace industry will be given £2 billion over 7 years. The aim is to secure jobs, and to set up a UK Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), allowing industry and academic researchers to develop the next generation of quieter, more energy efficient aircraft. There is realisation that aviation has to find ways to produce planes that use less fuel. Vince Cable said: Vince Cable says: "A step change in technology is needed if these aircraft are going to deliver the improvements in efficiency and environmental performance needed to make air travel sustainable." Half the money will come from Government and half from the industry. BIS has produced its Aerospace Strategy, which has been developed jointly with business through the Aerospace Growth Partnership. The Strategy builds on the Strategic Vision for UK Aerospace published at the Farnborough Air Show in July 2012. As part of the Government's Industrial Strategy, the UK government will also put £500 million towards other sectors such as the automobile industry and agriculture technology.
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Airports using a biotech high alkaloid endophytic form of grass to deter insects and birds
A form of grass - with the trade name Avanex - has been developed by a firm in New Zealand, Grasslanz Technology and commercialised by PGG Wrightson Turf. It has been designed to be endophytic, which means it incorporates a form of fungus that produces a high amount of alkaloids. This makes the grass distasteful to insects, and so the areas sown with this grass have no or few insects, and consequently few birds. The grass can be toxic to animals and comes with health warnings about livestock eating it. However, airports are enthusiastic to use the grass in order to deter birds and hence the risk of bird strike. The grass has so far been trialled in New Zealand airports since 2010 and found to cut bird numbers by large amounts, making airports very sterile areas, which is what the airport operators want. However, the blurb says "The grass could also be used at sports stadiums, golf courses and even domestic lawns," so the company wants to use its biodiversity-destroying product even more widely.
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Ryanair to expand fleet by 30% with Boeing order for 175 planes
Ryanair is planning to increase its aircraft fleet by 175 planes. That is adding about a third to the 305 planes it owns, bringing the total to around 380. The order with Boeing is worth some £10.3bn and is Ryanair’s biggest and the biggest by any European airline. It will allow some of the older planes to be retired. Ryanair, which flew some 79 million passengers in 2012 link, says it wants to increase its passenger numbers to 100 million a year. The order is for the current generation 737s, whose 737-800 model list price is around $89m each. Some 75 aircraft will replace Ryanair's existing fleet of 737s. Ryanair has only Boeing planes. Ryanair says "These 175 new planes will enable us to lower cost and airfares further." Michael O'Leary said “They provide Ryanair with the additional capacity to exploit substantial growth opportunities that currently exist as many of Europe’s flag carrier and smaller airlines are restructuring and reducing their short-haul operations.”
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CAA data shows 2012 air passenger numbers at UK airports up very slightly on 2011 and still 8% below 2007 peak
The CAA has released data for all the UK's airports for 2012. There were 0.6% more air passengers in 2012 than in 2011, but the 2012 figure was still about 8% lower than the peak in 2007. The number of UK air passengers was up by 1.3 million for the London airports, but only up by 0.1 million for the regional airports. UK airports handled almost 221 million passengers during 2012. Heathrow had slightly more passengers, due to use of larger planes. Gatwick grew faster than Heathrow (passengers up by 1.7% and 0.9% respectively) while Stansted had a fall of -3.2%. Provisional data from the CAA’s 2012 Passenger Survey (covering 5 main airports) shows that business passenger numbers fell by 4%, holiday passengers grew by 4% and passengers travelling to visit friends and relatives (VFR) were flat compared to 2011. Most UK air passengers go to Europe - 59.7%. About 9.2% go to North America; about 9% are on domestic flights, and about 13.9% are to long haul destinations other than North America. During 2012, air transport movements at UK airports declined by -1.3% on 2011 and down 15% on the 2007 peak of 2.5 million.
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Fewer premium class airline seats being bought across Europe
The rate of increase in demand for premium air travel (any seats that are not in economy class) is not growing as much as economy. Globally there around 8% of seats are in premium classes, though this was 9 - 9.5% in 2008. The demand for premium seats is not rising in Europe, and also not rising on transatlantic routes. However, in the rest of the world, especially in Asia, there is more growth in premium sales. The North Atlantic market between Europe and North America is the most lucrative premium airline market in the world – accounting for around 15% of all passengers and 22.9% of airlines’ total premium revenue. Premium demand within the Far East rose by about 9% in 2012 and now accounts for about 12% of the global premium air travel market. It appears more business flights within Europe are being made on economy flights, eg on easyJet, as European companies cut back on spending.