In news today Farnborough Airport (the largest dedicated business aviation airport in the UK) is looking to increase the number of aircraft movements it is allowed.
At the moment the local council is capping the number of movements at 28,000 movements annually. Considering this includes ALL weekend movements AND the airshow, this is a particularly small number of movements for such a large airport.
The reason the upgrade is needed is (as quoted by a Farnborough spokesperson)
According to Farnborough themselves they could accommodate 100,000 movements a year but will settle for about half that.
In my recent visit to Farnborough ATC I chatted with a few of the controllers there who said that they are under conflicting pressure from the users and the local residents. The users feel that the number of movements is artificially capped (and as such is causing them business issues) and the local users are, understandably, concerned about the affect of doubling the number of aircraft movements. Remember Farnborough generally deals with corporate/business jet aviation and - on my last visit there - had over 20 Gulfstream jets alone on the tarmac. We're not talking about weekend flyers in piper Warriers and Cessna 150's!
I'll keep an eye out on this one for you.
At the moment the local council is capping the number of movements at 28,000 movements annually. Considering this includes ALL weekend movements AND the airshow, this is a particularly small number of movements for such a large airport.
The reason the upgrade is needed is (as quoted by a Farnborough spokesperson)
"Between May 2007 and May 2008 we saw a 60% increase in airliner-size business jets at Farnborough alone,"Not surprisingly the local council will need to look into this in light of complaints about noise, air quality and safety (Farnborough is, after all, surrounded on most sides by built up areas and approaches from the east are over heavily populated areas. The Westerly approach is less populated, but does overfly the Odiham RAF base).
According to Farnborough themselves they could accommodate 100,000 movements a year but will settle for about half that.
In my recent visit to Farnborough ATC I chatted with a few of the controllers there who said that they are under conflicting pressure from the users and the local residents. The users feel that the number of movements is artificially capped (and as such is causing them business issues) and the local users are, understandably, concerned about the affect of doubling the number of aircraft movements. Remember Farnborough generally deals with corporate/business jet aviation and - on my last visit there - had over 20 Gulfstream jets alone on the tarmac. We're not talking about weekend flyers in piper Warriers and Cessna 150's!
I'll keep an eye out on this one for you.
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