Appendix B Gloucestershire Airport Business Plan - Questions and queries for Airport Board discussed at JASWG meeting 24 October 2007 7 Request Provide a clear table of existing and projected opening hours and the potential implications on ‘out of hours’ operations. GAL Response The normal operating hours (local time) at Gloucestershire Airport as taken from our website are as follows: Summer: Monday to Friday 0830 - 1930; Sat & Sun 0900 - 1930 Winter: Monday to Friday 0830 - 1930; Sat & Sun 0900 – 1800 Flights can be sometimes accepted outside these hours, subject to the availability of Air Traffic Control (ATC) and Airport Fire Service staff, and subject to a surcharge. The majority of these flights take place within 2 hours of normal opening or closing time. Some private flights are also permitted to operate on indemnity when the airport is closed. Private operators must complete the necessary paperwork and provide details of their Public Liability Insurance. These flights are only permitted between sunrise and sunset, and are subject to specified weather conditions, all such must be notified in advance to ATC. Repeat circuit flying is not permitted. Commercial and training flights are not permitted to operate when the airport is closed. Certain helicopter operators, normally connected with Police and Air Ambulance services are permitted to operate at any time, without prior notification. This has been the basic pattern of hours for over 30 years. The most recent change was more than 10 years ago, when the Airport opened at 0730 and closed at 2000 during weekdays but restrictions on the Air Traffic Controller’s shift lengths and general lack of demand saw them change to the current arrangements. There are no plans to extend these hours as part of the RSP. Analysis of the year-to-date ‘out of hours’ operations has been undertaken. The attached spreadsheet analyses out-of-hours flight between 29th September 2006 and 29th September 2007. During this period, there have been a total of 683 flights, although this includes some 70 flights related to the flooding rescue operations during the summer. Over 30% involve Air Ambulance and Police helicopters. The number of out-of-hours flights equates to less than 1% of total flights annually. Further analysis of out-of-hours flights show that the bulk of movements (92%) occur within one hour of published hours (see attached spreadsheet - OOH). Our current manning levels allow sufficient flexibility to accommodate this volume of traffic, but anything above and beyond this is subject to staff availability and a surcharge to cover the overtime costs. Page 1 of 30 Appendix B Gloucestershire Airport Business Plan 8 Comment Provide comment on the suggestions that works could be concentrated on the Western end of the runway. The works to remove Bank View Farm and re-route the Entrance Road remain fundamental to the RSP. The key limiting performance issue for 09 departures is the obstacle environment, not declared distances (page 10 refers). Similarly, although the Collision Risk Model (CRM) demonstrates a 'viable' Instrument Landing System (ILS) procedure in the current obstacle environment, failure to address the Variation (i.e. by removing the farm/controlling traffic) is extremely unlikely to be accepted by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), given the context in which the issues have been identified and addressed. Whilst we accept the Mott Macdonald technical assessment of Runway 09 Declared Distances and agree with their findings that the ILS ‘Collision Risk Model’ demonstrates an acceptable level of safety, these theoretical scenarios do not address the fundamental issue in hand. The presence of Bank View Farm and vehicles on Bamfurlong Lane are the subject of a Variation to the CAA Licensing criteria. It is this, combined with the hazardous environment at the western end of the airfield that is the key safety issues the RSP seeks to address. The CAA has stated that their policy is to seek to address Variations in all development projects. As an Aerodrome Licensee, it is difficult to justify and, therefore, accept a reduced level of safety. It is harder still to justify the case to the Regulatory Authority, particularly when the fundamental basis for the RSP has been to address the Variation up to this point. 9 Question One of the principle aims is to provide a better service to the community but given that the increase in traffic is likely to be training and the corporate market is the average member of the community likely to benefit. The benefits to the average community member are predominantly indirect, but significant to local prosperity. We strongly believe that the economic gain to the County is positive, (page 12 refers). Not only will the plans help to stimulate and sustain the growth of local businesses by opening up new markets and supply chains, it will further advance the County’s growing reputation and attractiveness to major commercial investors. The Airport and the associated aviation-related businesses on site currently employ over 400 local people. Many of these jobs are of a skilled or professional nature. The Airport’s property portfolio, including the fully let Meteor Business Park, now employs over 1500 people. In a region rich in aviation heritage and with strong aerospace industry connections, it is not surprising that recreational, private flying is a popular pastime. Aviation-related activities, such as pleasure flights, trial lessons etc. are immensely popular and a strong revenue source for the resident operators. Ancillary services, such as the café and pilot shop are well utilised by the public. Page 2 of 30 Appendix B Gloucestershire Airport Business Plan The local benefits of General Aviation in the community are not always immediately obvious. The general public takes services, such as the Air Ambulance and Police helicopters, for granted and assumes that there will always be sufficient numbers of trained commercial pilots to fly them off on the holiday and business flights they generally associate with Airports. Everyday, high-street names and blue chip companies use corporate aviation, and Gloucestershire Airport, on a daily basis. In fact, the Department for Transport have forecast that with the growth of the short-break tourism market, regional airports are likely to continue this positive trend into the foreseeable future. Feedback from passengers has been entirely positive, with the time-saving benefits and convenience of local facility highlighted. Prior to the introduction of the Isle of Man/Jersey/Belfast Scheduled Service between 2-3000 passengers per annum used the Airport. This figure will rise to over 5000 in the calendar year 2007 and is likely to exceed 14 000 in 2008. The success of the Manx2 services clearly indicates the demand for ‘niche’ routes from the Airport. This demonstrates the importance of air services for the regional tourism product, particularly in terms of bringing in high value tourism, business development and corporate relocation. 12 Request and clarify Provide a table of movements by category – training/corporate to provide both size of plane and number of passenger. Provide both existing levels and projections of movements which are then multiplied by fees to provide a backup paper to the income projection in the P&L Private 267 39% Air Ambulance 78 11% Police 87 13% Positioning 66 10% BAV 59 9% Air/Sea Rescue 45 7% Other 52 8% Cheltenham Festival 16 2% Scheduled/Charter 9 1% Diversions 4 1% Total 683 (Total Police/Ams/SAR) 210 31% Page 3 of 30 Appendix B Gloucestershire Airport Business Plan 12 Request and clarify Provide a table of movements by category – training/corporate to provide both size of plane and number of passenger. Provide both existing levels and projections of movements which are then multiplied by fees to provide a backup paper to the income projection in the P&L Movement Type FIXED WING Training (D,G) 47115 52.75% Private (F) 11258 12.60% Commercial (ATX, AC, B, C, E, H, BAV) 3425 3.83% Military (J) 153 0.17% Overshoots (OS) 1799 2.01% HELICOPTER Training (D,G) 18544 20.76% Private (F) 4059 4.54% Commercial (ATX, AC, B, C, E, H, BAV) 2575 2.88% Military (J) 228 0.26% Overshoots (OS) 170 0.19% Total fixed-wing 63750 71.37% Total rotary 25576 28.63% TOTAL MOVEMENTS 89326 Training 73.50% Private 17.15% Commercial 6.72% Military 0.43% Overshoots 2.20% Page 4 of 30 Appendix B Gloucestershire Airport Business Plan Movements Training Private Commercial Military Overshoots 15 Question Given CBC’s commitment to ensuring that climate change issues are recognised and monitored in future plans for the airport, will Gloucestershire Airport provide clear information on the existing carbon footprint of airport operations and how the RSP will increase or decrease carbon emissions? At a minimum, data is needed on the predicted increase in the number of flights that would result from implementing the proposals, with an estimate of the increased volume of fuel used and hence an estimated increase in CO2 emissions, based on DEFRA conversion factors. As shareholders, however, we would like to see the airport authority considering the impact of all activities at the airport on climate change and identifying measures to reduce carbon emissions in a quantifiable way. Page 5 of 30 Appendix B Gloucestershire Airport Business Plan An independent survey carried out by the Cabinet Office & HM Treasury titled ‘The Economics of Climate Change’, reported that the UK generates 2% of global man made CO2, of which aviation accounts for just 0.1%. Further analysis indicates that Aviation’s global contribution to climate change is estimated to grow to around 5- 6% by 2050 if radiative forcing is included (Stern, 2006). Although, it must be noted that the science on Radaitive Forcing is currently uncertain.