Sleep tight before the night flights bite

Ruritanian-based airport operator Infidel has thrown caution to the wind and is sniffing around Thanet, looking for an airport to buy.

Instead of, ahem, doing any proper research to find out if Manston is financially viable, they've sent us a few questions about what they would be allowed to do. Read on...

---

Does it matter how many people I wake up each night by flying over them?

Of course not.

TDC has never commissioned any research into the effects of night-flights on residents. They couldn't give a damn.

The S106 is over a decade old and has none of the restrictions that other airports impose to protect their local residents.

The local Council should have reviewed and renegotiated the S106 agreement regularly, but haven't - they can't be bothered.

The Council has always made it clear that Thanet is "open for business", and the S106 agreement certainly allows the airport to do pretty much what it likes.

So you can wake up as many people as you like - it's nothing for you to lose sleep over!

Comments

[Igloo]

We've been hearing the same line about Thanet Council sellng its residents down the river ever since the airport was privatised. Why does the Council treat the airport so differently from any other busines in the area? The rest of us have to comply with tough environmental restrictions. We aren't allowed to operate at night if it would wake people up and we can't discharge toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Yet the airport is postiviely encouraged despite the obvious environmental problems.

It seems to me that many Councillors are failing to take a balanced view on the issue of the airport. They are allowing the catch-phrase of jobs to overwhelm their statutory and moral duty to protect the welfare of people who live in the area. Yet the airport has continually failed to deliver anything like the number of jobs which have been promised at intervals over the years.

It wouldn't be so bad if these people could produce a coherent argument to support their case that the airport will make money. But it continues to lose millions of pounds every year with no indication that this could change in the foreseeable future. It takes years to develop profitable routes. There are few routes operating at the moment and no new ones have been announced for next year. The airport is failing to attract the day-time business that it is free to bid for. This has nothing to do with night-flights. It is about catchment area and being in the wrong place.

I wonder how many years of failure will be required before these Councillors finally realise that the airport is not commercially viable. Only in the strange little world that is Thanet could people in positions of authority put a business, which has made twelve straight years of thumping losses, at the forefront of their regeneration plans. Welcome to Planet Thanet.