Agenda for Public KIACC meeting

KENT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE

MEETING IN PUBLIC - in the Airport Departure Lounge

Friday 30^th November 2012 6.30pm

AGENDA

1. Chairman's welcome & opening
2. Minutes of last meeting
3. Matters Arising
4. Short introduction to the public part of the Meeting by P Twyman, Chair of KIACC
5. Short presentations from Community Fund recipients
6. Report from the Airport Management - a presentation on the airport and its future (Charles Buchanan, CEO Manston Airport)
7. Thanet District Council – an update on the Council's position on the airport and its development; the work of the Airport Working Party; and views on the future (Cllr Hart, Leader of the Council has been invited to speak)
8. Questions from the public and discussion

Game-changer - Manston to stop being an airport

Manston and Prestwick have proved hard to sell. Unsurprisingly. Infratil wants to sell them because they're failures - and that's why they're hard to sell.

Infratil has been losing millions every year, for years, and they're eager to staunch the flow. The penny seems to have dropped that these two failed airports would be easier to sell... if they weren't airports.

So Infratil is putting the word out that they're prepared to stump up cash to help potential buyers transform the airports into, er, something they actually want to buy.

Do feel free to use the comments section to pass on any helpful suggestions for Manton's future... theme park... solar farm... race track... nature reserve...

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Blackballed

I applied online to join the Why Not Manston? campaign. Their refusal is disappointing, but instructive:

Dear Mr Rose,

Last week we provisionally accepted you as a Supporter of our campaign. However, in your covering note, you stated your complete opposition to any Night Flights at the airport.

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KLM-Manston: analysis

Regular readers will recall that the last time KLM showed any interest in Manston, they were being lured by the promise of £600,000 - money which Manston and KCC were trying to prise out of the Government's Regional Growth Fund. The Government said "No", and KLM faded into the background. I do hope this new service isn't being subsidised from the public purse (national, county or district).

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KLM-Manston: reactions

Reactions from Sir Roger Gale MP, Laura Sandys MP, Sandra Matthews-Marsh (chief executive at Visit Kent), David Foley (east Kent Chamber of Commerce chief executive), Cllr Bob Bayford (Thanet Conservative Group), and Cllr Clive Hart (Leader of Thanet District Council).

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KLM-Manston: news reports

Reports from the national and local press, and a couple of interesting takes on the story from the trade press.

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No sign of Prestwick airport sale

The New Zealand company which owns Prestwick has said there is no sign of a buyer for the airport, and its value has fallen. Infratil put its two UK airports, which include Kent, up for sale in March this year.

However it said the sales process for both had been "unsuccessful to date". As a result, Infratil said it had taken an impairment charge of £22m, which now values Prestwick at about £14.3m and Kent at £7.6m. Infratil said that it would "continue to seek a buyer for the airports and work with local stakeholders to review alternatives". 

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Hurrah! A Public Meeting at Manston!

Diary Date: Friday 30th November 2012 at 6.30pm. As it says on the invitation:

Members of the public are invited to attend this meeting and will have the opportunity to ask questions after the business of the Committee has been dealt with. Hear from Thanet Council and the CEO of the Airport.  Hear about the work of KIACC.  Make your views known.

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Charles Buchanan's brave face

Every now and then Charles Buchanan reports to KIACC (the airport's consultative committee).

These reports are usually a rattling good read, if only to pick out the bits where a favourable gloss is put on the less than lovely truth.

The airport sale seems to be in the doldrums. The Olympics were a wash-out, although some planes parked at Manston. Posh people's planes.

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Draft Aviation Policy - have your say

This just in from our friends at Belfast...

I am contacting you on behalf of Belfast City Airport Watch, an umbrella organisation which represents 20 residents’ associations and community groups, and which also has more than 550 individual associate members.

I am contacting you because your organisation campaigns re the issue of aircraft noise related to what the government terms a ‘non-designated’ airport with regard to aircraft noise. (The designated airports – as you are probably aware - are Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick).

We are very concerned at the lack of any adequate new noise protection measures for residents near non-designated airports contained in the DfT’s Draft Aviation Policy Framework document.

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BBC Radio Kent airport debate in Rochester

BBC Radio Kent is hosting a debate on airport expansion.

A panel will come together at Cliffe Memorial Hall near Rochester on 30th October with doors opening at 18:00 GMT.

The panellists will be:

• Daniel Moylan, the Mayor of London's Aviation Advisor
• Councillor Alan Jarrett, Deputy Leader of Medway Council
• John Grant, Executive Vice President of aviation experts, OAG
• Charles Buchanan, Chief Executive, Manston Airport
• Sue Armstrong-Brown, Head of Conservation Science at the RSPB
• Clive Lawrence from Demand Regeneration in North Kent

If you would like to be in the audience, you can request tickets by emailing radio.kent@bbc.co.uk or writing to: BBC Radio Kent, The Great Hall, Mount Pleasant Road, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1QQ.

Admission is by ticket only. Tickets are free but are limited to a maximum of two per person and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. Applications for tickets close on 19 October.

Infratil Airports Europe; right ingredients wrong outcome

Infratil's assessment of their European airports, in their own words...

In the 1990s Australia and New Zealand were amongst the first countries to sell state-owned airports and to allow their commercial operation. The resulting value uplift encouraged Australasian investors to look at markets where similar developments were occurring, which led to Europe.

Infratil invested in Prestwick, Kent and Lübeck airports and purchased an option over an airport near Berlin. These airports were acquired at well below replacement cost as rapid growth in European air travel made it likely that their capacity would soon become needed and valuable.

Kent for instance cost less than £20 million and the next London runway will cost over £2 billion (Mayor Boris Johnson’s preferred site in the Thames Estuary is likely to cost over £20 billion).

Notwithstanding this enormous potential, Infratil has now called it quits. European air traffic growth has slowed so that the need for additional airfield capacity is postponed, and Infratil’s assessment of the relative benefits of waiting (and continuing to meet operating cost) versus refocussing elsewhere have favoured exit.

Infratil Update September 2012

Thoughts from the think tanks

A couple of think tanks (Policy Exchange and Centre Forum) have got their heads together to produce a thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of possible solutions to aviation capacity in the south-east.

The best approach would be to build a new four runway Heathrow, immediately west of the current site. These new runways would replace the existing runways. This would be straightforward to construct, and relatively low cost by the standards of hub airports. A combination of tightening permitted noise classes, ending night flights and landing narrow bodied planes more steeply makes it almost certain that this airport would be significantly quieter than the existing airport, despite catering for almost twice as many flights.

Leaving the airport where it is works for air traffic control. It also works for the wider economy: companies that have located near to the airport because they need to be near the airport do not have to move. The design of airport proposed here would be operationally efficient for both passengers and airlines, and would be the world’s best hub.

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All aboard the 4.20am flight to Amsterdam?

Let's have a quick look at the latest exciting news to come from Manston airport. The suggestion is that KLM's decision as whether or not to run a twice a day service between Manton and Schipol will be influenced (but not decided) by the response to Manston's online survey.

• Charles Buchanan says that KLM would have a plane parked at Manston overnight, ready to fly to Schipol each morning.
• Charles Buchanan has often said that planes only make money when they are in the air, so it follows that KLM would want their "Manston" plane back in Schipol bright and early so that it has plenty of working (flying) hours ahead of it through the rest of the day.
• Schipol Airport is effectively closed between 10pm and 6am, and Amsterdam is one hour ahead of us (at the moment).
• The flight time from Manston to Schipol would be about 40 minutes.
• To arrive in Schipol at 6am (local time), KLM's "Manston" plane would have to leave at 4.20am (local time).

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Fan mail

You are so backward sorry

I live in Ramsgate & am on the flight path. I have no problem with flights between 6am & midnight. I am on the approach & realise that for the future we need to allow Manston to expand a bit. So if a fire station or Ambulance station was to open near you would you complain about the sirens at 3am???? Perhaps if I was your neighbour & you had to have an ambulance at 3am I would stop it due to the noise from the sirens.

Your

Alun

---

Cheers, Alun - you're a pal.

Airport Working Party: unprepared

Cllr Gideon concluded that the consensus was that this is the wrong time to review the S106 agreement, and that it should be revisited as and when the airport sale goes through, or a planning application is received. It would be marvellous if the AWP adopted the motto used by hundreds of thousands of scouts and guides across Britain - "Be Prepared".

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A reader writes

I should like to make a few points, of which Cllr Carter should be informed! Firstly, he says that Manston's runway is 2,752m. When I checked, it was 2,658m. Heathrow has two runways - 3,500m and 3,570m, with Gatwick's one at 3,750m. So nowhere near comparable.

He says that Manston "is able to cater for all modern jet aircraft"; that's all very well, but a fully-laden 747 or 767 could not safely take off because there is no room to abort a take off in case of problems. If you remember, an Afghan DC-8 almost came a cropper on 11th August 2010 when, as it was later discovered, it tried to take off 25,000 lbs overweight!

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Infratil is selling Manston, but wants to buy Stansted. Why?

In March 2012, Infratil announced that Manston was up for sale because it wanted to "refocus its investment profile" and concentrate on retail, production and supplying gas and electricity. What they didn't mention in their press releases was that Manston had lost them money hand over fist ever since they bought it.

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Rival group enters battle for Stansted airport

A consortium led by an Australasian investment manager has emerged as an early rival to Manchester Airports Group in the £1bn battle for Stansted airport.

Morrison & Co, which operates out of New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong, is heading a bid team that also includes the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and Infratil, a Wellington-based infrastructure investor.

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KCC's contribution, for what it's worth

Boldly Stepping...

KCC are happily throttling themselves with management speak and business jargon, which is why some of their worst ideas are dressed up as "Bold Steps". The latest in the series is "Bold Steps for Aviation" which is described as

"a discussion paper which suggests how the UK's aviation capacity needs could be met without the need to develop a new hub airport in the Thames Estuary.  It is intended to contribute to the national debate and is published in response to the recent proposals from Lord Foster and the Mayor of London."

Like it or not, KCC's voice will carry some weight in the interminable debate about future flight capacity in the south-east, and this document is what they're thinking of saying on our behalf.

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