You say (5)
#Manston #nightflights
This email is to let you know that I am opposed to night flights at Manston on the grounds that I live directly under the flight path the noise will cause the deprivation of sleep which in itself is a heath risk. Tourism will be greatly affected with the loss of more jobs than will be created at Manston.
Click to have your say in the Public Consultation on Night Flights
I may be uniquely qualified to comment on the effect of night flights at Manston. I fly 25K- 30K miles a year usually spread over between 8 and 12 flights, so spend quite a lot of time at and travelling to, airports. Because of the geographical spread of my family I spend several months living close to Sydney, Kingsford Smith airport, I spend some weeks about 15 miles from Stansted Airport and most of the rest of the time in Broadstairs. In my career I have worked at several airports and know the industry fairly well but I don't claim to be an expert on the finer points.
I can say that whilst Sydney and Stansted have a curfew on night flights, the first arrivals in the morning at just after 06:00 wake me up. The whine of the approaching aircraft to Stansted is intrusive enough to do this, in Sydney because there is a large number of flights arriving, reverse thrust braking is used extensively to clear the runway quickly for the next arrival. The roar shatters the silence, making it futile to try to sleep past 06:00 with windows open. Admittedly it's all over by 09:30 but the damage is done. If this were to happen all night there would be extensive public action and the politicians would probably all be out of work!
I think it's fair to say that the population of Sydney and Stansted would rather the airports were somewhere else. Noise complaints and proposed mitigation matters feature in the Sydney Morning Herald regularly. The Federal government wants to build a second Sydney airport but no one wants it near them, so they can't agree on a site.
Manston is unlikely to attract sufficient passengers to make it viable, after all most of the UK population have to drive past 3 or 4 perfectly usable airports to get there.
Freight is the only option for its survival. A significant amount of airfreight to the UK/Europe moves over night in lorries because of airport curfews. The freight operators wish it were not so and Infratil will be aware of this. They want to be able to offer night flights as their unique selling point to the operators, once they do, I fear pressure will be applied to increase numbers, perhaps to capacity. In addition air freight is mostly carried in older aircraft which do not have the newer quieter generation of bypass turbo fan engines so they are inherently noisier. It should be noted that there is no sound deadening when reverse thrust is employed with any engine. Interestingly at Sydney an Airbus A380 takes off in the evening just before or after a Boeing 747 freighter, the Airbus is almost silent but the 747 can't be missed.
In the near term, employment won't necessarily increase at Manston because air freight handling is largely mechanical and semi automatic; one crew can cope with several aircraft fairly quickly. There seems to me to be no reason to support Manston in any way at all, it has always struggled and it always will and councillors should be mindful of the debacle their predecessors created over Sally Lines when they were completely outmanoeuvred by a smart operator. It ruined the Western Undercliff and has provided very little employment in compensation, and they thought Ramsgate was going to rival Dover!
I rest my case.
Click to have your say in the Public Consultation on Night Flights
I am writing to express my disapproval at the idea of night flights of any kind at Manston airport.
I believe night flights will disrupt the sleep of people living in the area generally and not just people living under the flight path.
It will also be detrimental to the regeneration of the area and in particular damage tourism in Ramsgate.
Air travel is not something that should be expanding in the 21st century. The resulting pollution takes us in the opposite direction to the one we should be moving in.
Click to have your say in the Public Consultation on Night Flights
I would like to express my opposition to any night flights from Manston airport. I live in Broadstairs, about 4 miles from Manston airport, and have made previous complaints from being awoken at night by noise intrusion caused by aircraft taking off or flying in to Manston.
This, during the autumn/winter months when the house windows have been closed, gives rise to serious concerns that noise levels are likely to be at unacceptable levels during the spring/summer months when windows are more likely to be open.
Thanet appears to be particularly still at night, perhaps an effect of being surrounded on three sides by water, and therefore any noise appears amplified. The noise of a large aircraft, unlike a passing train, appears to go on for a number of minutes, and with the likelihood of several interruptions during any one night the disruption to sleep could be profound and therefore unacceptable
I do not believe any perceived economic benefit of night time flight operations would outweigh the likely negative impact on the surrounding areas in terms of sleep disruption, especially when so close to such a densely populated area.
I have no opposition to commercial flights during the day, and have actively used such flights when they have been operated in the past. But the impact to myself, my family and any tourists staying in the area would, I believe, be significant and I therefore oppose any and all night flights.
Click to have your say in the Public Consultation on Night Flights
24/7, Consultation Manston, Night flights, TDC
Reader Comments (6)
Manston has had a lot of support over the years. It has some of the slackest restrictions anywhere in the country but has still been a commercial failure. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and Manston is demonstrably not viable as a passenger airport.
The argument about night-flights is irrelevant because 2 additional flights every night won't make a dent in the millions that Infratil are losing every year. Everyone who looks at it can see that the proposal makes no sense. You are going to employ ground-staff, ATC, fire and emergency crews throughout the night, just so that you can accomodate 2 flights? The salaries alone would cost Infratil more than they would get in landing fees. So, what is this proposal really about?
Please do read the independent report on Manston's application for night flights. It shows that the claims made regarding both passenger and freight flights are ridiculously exaggerated and that there are clear reasons for why Manston has not been able to succeed to date - none of which are to do with night flights. The report makes interesting reading and also shows that claims regarding the potential for jobs are false. This sort of independent research is what residents need to consider alongside the wild and well-publicised claims that Manston seems to be allowed to present as 'fact'.
As people living under the Heathrow flight path will tell you, night noise is a lot harder to stop once it is in place than before it has ever started. Think horses and stable doors.
Please do read the report and come back and tell us what you think.
I am in favour of Manston becoming a successful airport. But it would be amazingly stupid to want progress at any price.
I suspect I would be in favour of giving Manston a chance if they hadn't so blatantly lied to the people of Thanet about its prospects. I can understand aspirational entrepreneurism and I would in most cases support it.
But Manston have gone out of their way to make promises they have no intention of keeping and sold the development of an airport to the public where the evidential grounds for any argument they have made are shakey at best and at worse downright lies.
In essence what they are doing is bordering on fraud.
So do I have high hopes that a business has a chance of success that is born out of lies, manipulation and deceit? No.
See Manston's business plan for what it is and it is simply an expansion of cargo and freight flights that will grow into a bigger cargo hub for future airport development.
Will it create jobs? Yes. But we are talking 10's instead of 1,000's.
Will it impact locally on the health of residents? Yes. Quite severely too.
So do I support Manston in becoming a successful airport? Yes, but not this way and not at this price.
You want enterprise and employment in this area but Manston will not give you this. Support is only ever any good if the figures add up. We can all be avid supporters of our local football team but then be constantly let down when it continually fails to deliver.
That is what Manston is. The business plans are a work of pure fiction, there is absolutely no evidence to give any credence to the aspirations of the plan and the figures they have pulled out of the hat have been disputed and ridiculed by the sources of those figures.
Is it possible for Manston to be a successful airport? Yes, I think it could. I think Manston has real potential as a commercial airport but not with the current duplicitous and deceitful management that runs it.
How much taxpayer money will be wasted on a non-starter? How much suffering by over 15% of the local population has to be accepted? Two nights ago I was woken at just before 4am by a plane coming in to land, I have lost count of the number of times that has happened and I am way outside of the noise contour!
With such little return locally is this really a price worth paying?
To the best of my knowledge sleep deprivation does not encourage enterprise nor does it make employees fit for work.
Manston can grow without night flights. The passenger side which is the real income earner operates mostly during the day, so there is little or no justification for night flights. If you really want a successful airport then you will help to steer them away from this disastrous and damaging business plan and get them back on track to securing decent flight traffic that can benefit all.
In that, you have my complete support!
That could be applied to anything. Slavery say...... people were doing it before us so.....
How about fox hunting? Or living next to a railway line that suddenly wanted to run high speed trains all night?
A green grocers in Broadstairs had to curtail lorries delivering in the early hours because people living nearby complained about the increased noise. That is what we are talking about here... increased noise.
Not the same level that you have had for the last 20 or 30 years. The noise level limitation is according to Buchanan's article in the Gazunder last week, the equivalent to a 747. How comforting for us all.