East Midlands Airport second runway not ruled out
But officials say there is currently no need for it
Potential future plans for a second runway at East Midlands Airport have not been ruled out, though leadership says its capacity is currently far above what is currently required.
At a South Derbyshire District Council meeting last week, the capacity of the airport, the impact of noise on residents, ageing aircraft and the effect of the East Midlands Freeport were all discussed.
Neil Robinson, the corporate social responsibility and future airspace director for the Manchester Airports Group (MAG), provided a range of updates on the site, which handles a large proportion of the nation’s freight flights.
When asked about potential future plans for a second runway at the site, Mr Robinson said that London Stansted had managed to increase capacity from 43 million to 50 million passengers without the need for an additional runway.
He said that East Midlands, currently on 4.8 million passengers a year, has “ample capacity to grow for the foreseeable future”.
Mr Robinson said: “Never isn’t a word I would use but there is no need for one (a second runway) for the foreseeable future. There is room for a reasonable increase in annual passengers without the need for a second runway.”
He said that land capacity for airports is a key issue, but that at the East Midlands site the current car parking area could be used to cater for some expansion.
Mr Robinson said a key issue when looking to add an extra runway is the distance between that additional facility and the terminal, with passengers wanting to be as close as possible for a quick departure.
He was also asked about the potential impact of the planned East Midlands Freeport, aimed at bringing billions of pounds of investment and thousands of jobs to the region, with the airport as an anchor for the Government-backed project.
The scheme was said to be a testament to the airport’s reputation as “the country’s most important mover of international freight and the catalyst for the explosive growth”.
However, Mr Robinson appeared to place less emphasis on the importance of the freeport project itself.
He said: “We are expecting East Midlands Airport to grow. The passenger numbers have been more challenging and slower to recover than we would have hoped, but we expect freight to grow pretty strongly.
“It is difficult, the freeport, when East Midlands Airport grows it helps the whole economy and the airport grows if the economy is growing, with or without the freeport. I wouldn’t expect the freeport to really change what we do.
“If our services grow it will grow the national economy. It is very early days at the moment (the freeport plans) and we expect East Midlands to get busier with freight, we are in a little bit of flux.”
Mr Robinson talked at length and was questioned by district councillors Amy Wheelton, Neil Atkin and Martin Fitzpatrick on the issues posed by noise from the airport.
He said that the airport has been pushing for years to make it increasingly harder for older and more noisy aircraft to fly from the site – with additional hurdles put in place for nighttime flights.
Mr Robinson said that due to the airport’s almost unique focus on freight, particularly during the pandemic, the amount of freight cargo (not passengers) it was handling was above previous levels – 15 to 20 per cent up.
This, the airport has previously said, is increasingly partly due to more online shopping during the pandemic.
Mr Robinson said during lockdown and particularly the first wave of Covid-19 airline companies needed to fly in huge amounts of personal protective equipment and other supplies as often and as quickly as possible.
This, he said, saw more airlines willing to pay the added costs of flying at night and in older or more noisy aircraft, which had been noticed by residents in the flight paths, councillors say.
He said 60 per cent of the airport’s freight cargo was flown at night (11pm to 7am) due to the needs of airline companies to have deliveries ready as soon as possible the next day and to make way for passenger flights in daytime hours.
Mr Robinson said 99.9 per cent of night flights met the current “chapter four” noise standards, requiring lower decibel levels, while 25 per cent already meet chapter 14 standards.
Freight aircraft are typically large former passenger aircraft which have been stripped of their seating to continue their use for cargo. This means they are often louder and are less environmentally friendly.
Councillors wanted more people in the area surrounding the airport to be eligible for triple glazing, which the airport funds for people who have a proven noise disturbance from the site.
They also suggested that with more housing planned in southern Derbyshire and southern Nottinghamshire, this issue may only expand further and further.
Mr Robinson said that with flight technology improving the paths which aircraft use while approaching the site and departing it are becoming narrower and narrower.
He said this avoided disturbance for more and more people but also had the effect of causing more disturbance for a smaller subset of households – which may mean rotating through different flight paths.