Category: BLOG

Fair Flight Paths

The UK will have it’s airspace modernised over the next few years, and this will mean, what the industry has described as, ‘once in a lifetime’ changes.

Naturally, with so much at stake, communities up and down the country (particularly the already overflown) are concerned to ensure that the process delivers fair outcomes, and fair flight paths. This is a reasonable expectation.

The CAA and NATs are leading principally on the design of the new flight paths and essentially have peoples’ lives in their hands. Designed well, flight paths can be a revelation; designed badly they can be a death sentence.

The current principle for flight path design is that of ‘least people’. Although this may be efficient, it is hardly fair (fair is about treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination). It is also worthwhile remembering that most systems require scope for adjustment. Ruthlessly pursuing the ‘least people’ principle can be seen in:

• Centreline concentration – this has been raised time, and time again by communities who argue for greater dispersal (distribution) of noise. Not only is this feasible, it is fair. It is even fairer to people who may also have to endure concentrated arrivals also for part of the time. 

• Over use of concentrated flight paths to hammer the same people again, and again. While this may be very efficient, again, it isn’t very fair.

There are significant perceived and known health risks associated with such an approach, such as cardio vascular disease/hypertension, and premature death, as well as stress, anxiety, depression, including severe depression (with increased suicide risk potential). 

Other concerns around concentrated flight paths concern equalisation. All flight paths are not equal, and while they may look similar in terms of a line on a chart they may have completely different impacts. To be ‘equalised’, and fairer, we need to understand that we are comparing like with like (or as near as). So the volume of traffic, intensity, aircraft mix (there are ‘tiddler’ aircraft and monsters), altitude and proximity to properties really tell the story. 

Noise averages, paradoxically, as in noise contours appear to be insufficiently sensitive to identify what could be a micro noise ghetto or hotspot. Here several flight paths may converge (perhaps as many as three) delivering perhaps 3 times the noise as any of the individual ones. Is this fair? And if it isn’t how do we equalise it, or at least try to make it a little fairer? Arguing about it, if you are a minnow in a pond of bigger fish is, on its own, unlikely to resolve it, and overtime it is likely to get worse as even more traffic is dispersed over your head. 

While the ‘least people’ principle can stick, it should be moderated by a ‘least harm’ test. Therefore if challenged, as in the hypothetical case of 3 flight paths into one, a ‘least harm’ test could be applied, enabling the minor rejigging of the flight paths at that point. This might see a neighbour taking a part of the strain. The net effect might then be 710 people affected instead of 709/8 (whatever) but the lives saved for the otherwise overdone original target. This is the importance of flexibility, challenge, integrity, and (pragmatic) adjustment in a system.

So, while we all probably want, and need, fair flight paths I truly worry how this is going to be fairly delivered in practice. 

I’ve been checking the emails HACAN has received over the last two months.  There is one striking feature.  Over 95% of those which contain a complaint are from people living in areas that get aircraft noise all day long.  

Some are about departure routes that have become more concentrated.  Some are about arrivals over places that get no respite.  

Astonishingly, not one has come from the parts of West London which enjoy a half day’s break from the noise when landing aircraft switch runways at 3pm each day.

The message couldn’t be clearer.  It is a period of relief from the noise which people value above all else.  Heathrow has commissioned a major study to assess what meaningful respite might look like and how it could be introduced.  It is the first airport in the world to undertake such a wide-ranging study.  It is due to be published next spring.

The plans for a new runway at Heathrow – if it ever given the go-ahead – all include provision for respite.  The most creative come from Heathrow Hub (who want to extend the existing northern runway).  The brains behind the scheme is the highly respected former Concorde pilot Jock Lowe.  He argues that is feasible and safe for planes to join their final approach path as close as three miles from the airport, thus allowing for multiple respite routes.   

Respite is also expected to feature in the Government’s proposals when it consults on airspace changes later this year.

But the clear message from the HACAN emails is that people are not to wait for some relief from the noise; they want it the day before yesterday.  In the hot summer weather many of those living in the noise ghettos are in despair.  They are angry and want change.  They may differ a little on how they define ‘respite’ – some prefer the words relief, dispersal, sharing it around – but they are all united in one call: ‘Give us a Break from the Noise’.

At last we are seeing movement on introducing flight paths which can benefit residents.

Last week Gatwick Airport accepted the recommendations of an independent report which outlined a new approach to flight paths.  http://www.gatwickairport.com/globalassets/publicationfiles/business_and_community/all_public_publications/2016/gatwick—response-document-action-plan-final-31mar2016.pdf 

These included looking to introduce multi-path approaches to share out the noise burden.  The devil of this scheme will lie in the detail and there will need to be changes from the routes suggested to avoid some areas getting both arrivals and departures.  But the change in the airport’s attitude from just from a couple of years ago has been seismic.  It had changed routes with little or no regard for residents.  This provoked a backlash from some very well-healed areas.  The result has been that the airport has had to rethink it approach.

The Gatwick decision comes hard on the heels of a consultation from the Civil Aviation Authority suggesting new ways in which it oversees changes to flight paths which are more transparent and involve local people more closely.

https://consultations.caa.co.uk/policy-development/proposals-for-revised-airspace-change-process/consult_view

HACAN has broadly welcomed the proposals in the consultation:  file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/John%20Stewart/My%20Documents/Downloads/my_response%20(1).pdf 

The CAA had been heavily criticized, including in a report it had commissioned from the consultants Helios, over the way it had been overseeing proposals for changes to flight paths.  For example, its decision to allow London City Airport to concentrate its flight paths has provoked outrage from residents, MPs and local authorities in the areas affected.  Our sister organisation, HACAN East, will be seeking to meet with the CAA over the decision.

Many of the flight path changes are being driven by the industry’s desire to use the new computer technology now available to fly planes on more precise routes.  That can save airlines fuel, increase the capacity of the airspace, improve the resilience of busy airports and make some savings on climate change emissions.

Although concentration of flight paths is not an inevitable result of the use of this new precision technology, it has been the outcome in many places, most notably in America where communities and city authorities have been up in arms.  Quite rightly so, as noise ghettos have been created.

Some years ago foresaw this danger of noise ghettos and has engaged with Heathrow Airport to come up with flight path proposals which not only bring benefits not only to the industry but also to residents.  We identified the provision of respite as the key, i.e. the sharing around of concentrated routes in order to give people predicable periods of relief from the noise. (The proposed routes at Gatwick are, I believe, slightly different: the intention is to use the multiple routes not to give periods of predicable relief but to ensure no community get all the planes but the aim is the same: to avoid the creation of noise ghettos).

Heathrow Airport has invested a considerable amount of effort in preparing for respite.  It has commissioned a major study looking at how meaningful respite can be introduced in and around Heathrow.

The prize for hundreds of thousands of residents could be huge.  It is not just that noise ghettos are likely to be avoided but that the current situation will be improved.  Years before we had heard of precision technology, HACAN had been pressing for just this sharing out of concentrating routes because of the daily nightmare people were experiencing.

This is not something many of the people living under the landing flight path in West London truly understand as most of them already get relief when planes coming in to the airport switch runways at 3pm.  

But this relief only applies to those in the boroughs closest to the airport.    In a typical week, by far the largest number of emails and phone calls I get come from people outside these areas.  Some are from people under departure routes (which I’ll deal with shortly); the majority from people in South East and East London driven crazy by what they see as constant noise; sometimes, according to surveys carried out by HACAN, over 40 planes an hour.

These people don’t fear new flight paths.  They can’t wait for them to be introduced.  They want the blessed relief that predicable flight paths, switched on a regular basis, would bring.  I am not exaggerating when I say that people ring me on hoping that they can hold out until the respite comes in.  Hoping they don’t have to move away.  There are even people who have rented out their homes for a few years, intending to move back in when relief and respite becomes a reality.

The emotions and the passions, the fears and the hopes are intense.  It is the same for many under the departure routes.  The “ghettoisation” of departures has been intensified as aircraft have increasingly all followed the centre-line of the Noise Preferential Routes (the 3 kilometre wide band which aircraft need to use until they reach 4,000 ft).

It will be harder to introduce meaningful respite within the Noise Preferential Routes and some sharing around within the NPR might be more appropriate.

Heathrow is under a lot of pressure to announce what flight paths will look like if a third runway is built.  I suspect it does not know where they will all be.  It is unlikely to be in a position to know until it completes its respite study (expected to be spring 2017).  By then, it will be clearer whether it is planning flight paths for a two or three runway airport.  A third runway clearly brings all sorts of other issues but, even with a third runway in place, Heathrow claims it could provide 95% of people with respite 50% of the time.  That’s much more than it does today.  For most people that’s not an argument for a third runway but what it does reveal is the possibilities for respite that are opening up.

I’ve written about this before, but it is worth saying it again.  Heathrow is not just a West London problem. Or just a Windsor problem.  Its impact is felt over 25 miles from the airport.  Kate Hoey, the Vauxhall MP, emphasized it again in the House of Commons this week ((14/12/15) during questions to the Transport Secretary when she SAID:

The Secretary of State is a very honourable gentleman, particularly as he is my constituent. I am sure that deep down he is not particularly happy today. In his statement, he talked about the best possible outcome for local residents. Does he accept that my Vauxhall constituents may not be considered as local residents to Heathrow, but that it is crucial that their views are taken into consideration? 

This video, commissioned by HACAN, illustrates the impact of aircraft noise on Vauxhall, about 17 miles from Heathrow: https://youtu.be/rXf8o_khz8s 

A study HACAN commissioned from the independent noise consultants Bureau Veritas in 2008 found that in Kennington Park, close to the Oval Cricket Ground “aircraft noise dominated the local environment.”  In a separate study found that during certain periods of the day over 40 planes an hour fly over the Oval.

It is important to stress the extent of the noise problem to counter the accusation heard again in recent days following the Government’s decision to postpone a decision on expansion that it is a handful of ‘West London Nimbys’ who are damaging the national interest by holding up a third runway.

An email sent to HACAN in August.  From Hounslow, Windsor or even Vauxhall?  Try Walthamstow, deep in North East London.  

Of course, it is not true that everybody in Walthamstow is disturbed by the noise.  Just as there are people in Hounslow, Windsor and Vauxhall who are not bothered by it.

But my point is that there are people from the airport seriously impacted by it. A lot of them.  HACAN gets more emails from South East London than from any other area.

Most of these people are not captured by the noise statistics.  They live outside the official noise contours, even the more realistic ones used by the European Commission.  Their opinions are not sought in the (in)famous Populus polls commissioned by Heathrow which claim to show just over 50% support for a new runway in the boroughs closest to the airport.

What they are looking for is respite: a predicable break from the noise.  It is the constant refrain in email after email, week after week which HACAN receives.  Heathrow Airport has now recognized the problem and has commissioned research to look at practical ways of introducing respite.  It is a considerable piece of work which won’t report until the end of 2016.  But the sooner 

The Secretary of State is a very honourable gentleman, particularly as he is my constituent. I am sure that deep down he is not particularly happy today. In his statement, he talked about the best possible outcome for local residents. Does he accept that my Vauxhall constituents may not be considered as local residents to Heathrow, but that it is crucial that their views are taken into consideration? They live under early morning noise pollution that is absolutely shocking. An extra runway at Heathrow will make it much worse.

Back Heathrow had a clear (and legitmate) job to do yesterday.  They were faced with a high-profile anti-3^rd runway rally in Central London at which the mayoral candidates of all the five main parties were speaking.  It would get significant coverage and it did.  They needed to find a way to undermine it.

The most effective way to do so would be to highlight a low attendance.  And, sure enough, they alighted on early media reports that only a few hundred people had attended the march.  In fact, as the pictures show, the actual number ran into thousands.

However Back Heathrow continues to use the lower figure.  They need to update and upgrade it.   

HACAN has publicly acknowledged that three is more support for a third runway than perhaps many thought. (We of course also highlight the huge amount of bitter opposition to it!).  We see no point in denying reality.  It would be to Back Heathrow’s credit if they did acknowledge that the numbers attending yesterday’s rally were a lot higher than the early figures they have been quoting. 

What if Davies got his sums wrong……………

The Airports Commission recommended a third runway at Heathrow largely on the basis of the economic benefits it would bring to the country.  However, over the last few weeks evidence has emerged that the economic case for a third runway is much less convincing than it may have appeared.

What strengthens the argument is that much of this evidence, whilst unearthed by Gatwick Airport and others, is contained in the report of Airports Commission itself.

We now know:

The number of domestic airports linked to Heathrow will fall from 7 to just 4.

A 3^rd runway will provide no more than 12 additional long-haul destinations by 2050

The case for a new runway at Heathrow always rested on the fact it would significantly improve connectivity to the emerging economies of the world and that it would connect more UK airports to Heathrow.  The facts suggest otherwise.  Indeed, a second runway at Gatwick would add 10 new long-haul destinations at a fraction of the cost to the taxpayer.

We also now know:

The £147 billion the Commission said a 3^rd runway would bring to the national economy over 60 years is likely to be way too high.

Its own experts Professor Peter Mackie and Brian Pearce told the Commission that the method of modelling used by consultants PwC, which produced this figure, faced “a number of difficulties” and was about three times higher than traditional estimates.

Using the more traditional modelling methods, and assuming carbon trading is in place, the benefits of a third runway over a 60 year period fall to £69 billion.  A second runway at Gatwick would bring in just over £60 billion.

But, if the costs of the disbenefits (such as noise and emissions) and the costs of delivering the third runway are included, the economic benefits fall to £11.8 billion over 60 years.  The Commission admits Gatwick would be close behind at £10.8 billion.  (Gatwick Airport believes this is an underestimate as it argues the Commission has underestimated the number of passengers it would attract).

A recent report from the Aviation Environment Federation puts the benefits of a third runway even lower as it believes the Commission hasn’t fully factored in the costs of climate emissions.

But, even on the Commission’s own figures, the economic benefits of a third runway at Heathrow could be much less than has been commonly assumed. 

Food for much thought for the cabinet committee which is assessing the Commission’s recommendation.    

What if Gatwick is right……………

The Airports Commission recommended a third runway at Heathrow largely on the basis of the economic benefits it would bring to the country.  However, over the last few weeks evidence has emerged that the economic case for a third runway is much less convincing than it may have appeared.

What strengthens the argument is that much of this evidence, whilst unearthed by Gatwick Airport and others, is contained in the report of Airports Commission itself.

We now know:

The number of domestic airports linked to Heathrow will fall from 7 to just 4.

A 3^rd runway will provide no more than 12 additional long-haul destinations by 2050

The case for a new runway at Heathrow always rested on the fact it would significantly improve connectivity to the emerging economies of the world and that it would connect more UK airports to Heathrow.  The facts suggest otherwise.  Indeed, a second runway at Gatwick would add 10 new long-haul destinations at a fraction of the cost to the taxpayer.

We also now know:

The £147 billion the Commission said a 3^rd runway would bring to the national economy over 60 years is likely to be way too high.

Its own experts Professor Peter Mackie and Brian Pearce told the Commission that the method of modelling used by consultants PwC, which produced this figure, faced “a number of difficulties” and was about three times higher than traditional estimates.

Using the more traditional modelling methods, and assuming carbon trading is in place, the benefits of a third runway over a 60 year period fall to £69 billion.  A second runway at Gatwick would bring in just over £60 billion.

But, if the costs of the disbenefits (such as noise and emissions) and the costs of delivering the third runway are included, the economic benefits fall to £11.8 billion over 60 years.  The Commission admits Gatwick would be close behind at £10.8 billion.  (Gatwick Airport believes this is an underestimate as it argues the Commission has underestimated the number of passengers it would attract).

A recent report from the Aviation Environment Federation puts the benefits of a third runway even lower as it believes the Commission hasn’t fully factored in the costs of climate emissions.

But, even on the Commission’s own figures, the economic benefits of a third runway at Heathrow could be much less than has been commonly assumed. 

Food for much thought for the Cabinet Committee which is assessing the Commission’s recommendation    

The Airports Commission has a view on happiness.  It got lost in the immediate analysis of its report. But it is important……because a key justification it gives of  a third runway at Heathrow is that flying abroad on holiday or to visit family and friends makes you happy.

On page 70 of its final report it says: 

“Leisure flights have a high social value. Empirical analysis focused on passengers travelling on holiday or to visit friends and family has shown how the access to leisure travel affects mental health and wellbeing. The findings demonstrate these patterns of travel are associated with higher levels of life satisfactions, general and mental health, and happiness.”

The Commission had asked PwC to look at the academic literature on happiness.  They found that it did show that taking a holiday did make people happy.  Their second claim – that air travel is associated with a higher level of happiness – was less well-founded because the statistical work that PwC did for the Commission didn’t split up the respondents into those that travelled on holiday by car, train or bus and those that flew.

However, it would be churlish to deny that cheap flights providing holidays in the sun don’t bring happiness to people.  Only last week I was having a snack at a cafe in Canning Town in East London.  When I asked the young waiter if he was going on holiday this year, his eyes lit up as he explained to me that for the first time in the years he and his girlfriend had saved enough money to fly off for a holiday to Portugal. 

The really interesting question is why the Airports Commission is, at least in part, justifying the expansion of Britain’s premier international airport on the grounds of increasing the happiness of a young lad from Canning Town.

Can it be that it found:

The proportion of business trips is falling  

The Airport Commission’s report could be a game-changer.  But not necessarily in the most obvious way.  New runways dominated the headlines last week when its chairman, Sir Howard Davies, published the report.  Inevitably so.  Gatwick or Heathrow.  It is a big story.  And, if the report does result in a new runway being built in London and the South East, it will be very big indeed.

But Davies was also asked to look at aviation noise policy.  And it is here he has developed proposals which, if implemented, could be game-changing. Indeed, even if they are not all taken forward, he has prised open a door that had been fairly firmly closed for a long time.  Importantly, though some of his proposals are Heathrow-specific, many are UK -wide.

The most eye-catching of his proposals is a legally-binding ban on scheduled night flights between 11.30pm and 6am if a third runway is built at Heathrow.  He argues that the new runway would provide the capacity to relocate the 16 flights which currently land between 4.30am and 6am to land just after 6 o’clock.  The Commission looked at the experience of Frankfurt which banned flights between midnight and 5am after its controversial fourth runway opened in 2011.  It found that the economy of Frankfurt did not crumble; nor did Lufhanza’s profits tumble.  This reinforces an earlier finding in work done by Tim Leunig for the Policy Institute that a ban on night flights at Heathrow is operationally achievable and not damaging to the economy. (That is not the case of a ban until 7am). Heathrow has not yet committed to a ban.  It will need to speak to its biggest customer, British Airways, but, if it was the price of getting a new runway, I’m pretty certain they would introduce it.  And, if Heathrow banned night flights, there would be pressure on other airports in the UK and in the rest of Europe to so much the same.

Davies has bought into the concept of respite.  This is the idea where residents under flight paths are guaranteed, wherever possible, predicable breaks from the noise.  He has made it a condition of a new runway going ahead at Heathrow but his clear endorsement of the concept will mean that other airports will be under pressure to introduce it.  This is, of course, particularly timely given the reorganization of flight paths that will take place over the next five years – regardless of what happens on runways – in order to allow more effective use to be made of airspace.

Davies has also the promoted the idea of an independent noise authority.  The details of this body have yet to be worked out but its main role would be to ensure fair play between local communities, the airport and other key decision-makers.  Heathrow has worked hard in recent years to improve its working relationship with the local community but this is not the case at many of the smaller airports in the country.  An independent noise authority would have a particularly important role to play at these airports.

Finally, post-Davies, the Government and others will struggle to go back to the old, discredited way of measuring noise annoyance.  This sounds technical but it is critical in getting policy-making correct.  If the level of annoyance is underestimated, it would underestimate the impact of  new runways or changed flight paths on the population.  The Government’s preferred noise contour – known as 57 LAeq – excluded places like Putney and Fulham as areas where people were significantly disturbed by aircraft noise from Heathrow.  Simply not reality!  Davies has recommended that airports and the Government use a suite of metrics to convey and more accurate and realistic picture of where noise occurs. 

HACAN worked constructively with the Airports Commission in the work it was doing on noise.  In recent years we have also worked closely with Heathrow on noise matters.  Things are changing.  Whatever happens to runways as a result of the Davies report it has left a potentially game-changing legacy with its work on noise.

http://hacan.org.uk/blog/?p=427

We routinely are told that, if Heathrow doesn’t expand, people from other UK airports will choose to fly to Schiphol to interchange on to a long-distance flight.  The CEO of Schiphol has even rather cheekily called it ‘Heathrow’s third runway’.  He knows full well it can never be that because Schiphol has almost reached capacity.

It is not that Schiphol lacks runway space.  It has five runways (six if you include one for very small planes) and fewer flights than Heathrow.  The capacity constraint is down to the strict rules which exist about which runways can be used and when.  There are tight noise regulations in place which mean that all five runways are never in use at any one time.  Indeed, rarely are more than three of the runways used at once.  And the use of the two runways which go over densely-populated areas is avoided whenever possible.

But here’s the big reason why Schiphol can never become London’s third runway.  It has almost reached its permissible noise limits.  The airport has a complex way of regulating noise:  “the present system as from 2005 consists of 35 points around Schiphol where the actual noise of passing planes is physically measured and added up to annual totals per point. If a total at a certain point exceeds its legal maximum, the relating runway can no longer be used and traffic should be diverted to alternative runways. The maximum capacity of this system is some 480,000 air traffic movements each year.”  You can read more about this in the paper Noise Reduction at Schiphol. 

The system is being altered so that possibly 510,000 flights will be able to use the airport each year.  But that’s it.  No more.  And not significantly greater than the 480,000 cap at the two-runway Heathrow.  The trips from Edinburgh, Manchester or Newcastle to Schiphol to interchange will have a finite limit.  

Schiphol is looking to get round its limits by ‘outsourcing’ perhaps as many as 70,000 low-cost, leisure flights to the smaller airports Netherlands.  If  – and it still very much is ‘if’ that happens – it will free up some space at Schiphol but not enough to dent the myth that Schiphol can ever become Heathrow’s third runway.  Gatwick maybe.  Stansted possibly.  Even Birmingham or Boris Island.  But not Schiphol.  The Dutch take their noise responsibilities far too seriously for that to happen. 

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