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LONDON MANSTON AIRPORT – NIGHT FLIGHTS 11 December 2003 Cllr Sandy Ezekiel Dear Cllr Ezekiel LONDON MANSTON AIRPORT – NIGHT FLIGHTS I understand that the Council is to meet this evening to address, amongst other things, the recent spate of night flights operating from Manston Airport. I should like to take this opportunity to provide as full an explanation as I can of the circumstances surrounding these activities. First, however, I should like to offer our sincere apologies to Thanet residents who have been disturbed by night flights. We take seriously our obligations to keep to the absolute minimum the number of night flights operating outside of our established operating hours, and I wish to assure you that the decision to allow them to happen at all is not taken lightly. Careful consideration is given in weighing the balance between the operating/commercial imperatives of the airline operator on the one hand and the level of disturbance to those residents living under the flight path on the other. Since September of this year a total of 17 flights have operated outside of the Airport’s established operating hours of 0700-2300. Of that figure, 14 flights have been involved in meeting the requests of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq for airlifted humanitarian assistance in support of the civil reconstruction of Iraq, and three were aircraft under charter to the British Ministry of Defence for flying troops to and from Afghanistan. I should like to address each of these categories in turn. When, in August 2003, we agreed to support the humanitarian flights to Iraq it was on the basis that departure times would not be outside of our established operating hours. Sadly, as the general security situation in Iraq deteriorated the risk of attacks to aircraft of landing at Baghdad International Airport increased to the point that we were asked to delay departure times to help minimise the risks to crews. We therefore found ourselves in the unenviable position of having to allow later departures at extremely unsocial and normally unacceptable hours to help meet what I hope you will agree were exceptional circumstances. I am pleased to say that those aircraft departing late from Manston arrived safely in Iraq. The recent incident of a DHL cargo aircraft being attacked as it took off from Baghdad serves to illustrate all too graphically the very real dangers confronting airline operators and the civil authorities in Iraq as they fly in badly needed emergency and other aid. Our reticence in this matter owes much to the need to avoid publicising such flights lest in so doing so we add unnecessarily to the dangers. I am aware of speculation publicly that these aircraft were carrying hazardous cargo, and I should like to take this opportunity to assure you and the Council that there is no question of any of these flights conveying munitions or any other hazardous material to Iraq. As a result however of a combination of local factors in Iraq, including the attack on the DHL aircraft, humanitarian and other emergency aid flights are now being directed to locations elsewhere in the Middle East. A consequence of this decision is that we are no longer being asked to delay departures for security reasons. Turning now to the Ministry of Defence flights, I can state that the flights on 9, 24 and 30 September were at the request of the British Government and involved flying British troops to and from Afghanistan where they were undertaking their UN responsibilities. The late arrival on 9 September was due primarily to air traffic delays en route to Manston. The departures on 24 and 30 September were scheduled to depart from Manston before 2300 hours, but due to a series of unforeseen technical difficulties both aircraft were seriously delayed. Finally, I should like to say a word or two about the acceptability of these flights in relation to the Section 106 Agreement. The effect of accepting the late departure of CPA sponsored flights to Iraq has of course taken us above the quota of 12 such flights in any calendar year (section 1.4.2 of the Agreement refers). As you know we have sought advice from the Council as to how these flights should be treated. As I hope I have made clear our agreement to support these humanitarian flights was given in good faith and on the understanding that they would depart Manston between 2200 and 2230 hours, namely within normal operating hours and not between the night-time flying parameters of 2300-0700 hours as set out in the Section 106. In other words it was a response to the deteriorating security situation in Iraq that prompted the subsequent later departure times and not, as some critics of the Airport might wish to argue, a back-door attempt to establish regular night flights. In that latter regard I should like formally to state that the Airport has no plans to introduce regular night flying, and that even if it did it would first be necessary to develop a Night Time Flying Policy for consideration by the Council consistent with our obligations under the Section 106 Agreement. I hope that against that background the Council will be minded to suspend temporarily the limitation on the number of humanitarian and emergency aid flights. At the time when the architects of the Section 106 Agreement determined the limitation I doubt whether anyone seriously envisaged that as a country (yet alone an airport in Kent) we would be facing demands for such assistance to be delivered to the war-torn areas of Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and now Iraq, to name but three. Nor I suspect would they have envisaged those flights having to depart from Manston at what in normal circumstances would rightly be regarded as wholly unacceptable times in order to minimise the very real and evident danger to those flight crews having to fly into hostile environments. I am sending a copy of this letter to Cllr Richard Nicholson, Richard Samuel and to Sir Alistair Hunter in his capacity as Chairman of the Manston Airport Consultative Committee. Yours sincerely Paul Tipple |