Southend Airport Controlled Airspace

[John Price]

Guess what ?

Southend are going for controlled airspace looks like it may take a year or two to get organised though.

Here's a link

http://www.southendairport.com/news/lat ... -airspace/

I suppose it was inevitable after the olympics.

I wonder if Manston will be next ?

John.

[Brian Hope]

I agree it was inevitable but not because of the Olympics, with Sqeasy Jet operating about ten flights a day in the open FIR out of or into the ATZ the risk is probably felt to be unacceptable for CAT operations. Provided they don't get too precious about it - at the moment they are happy to clear us through their ATZ pretty much 100% of the time - then we shouldn't be too badly affected. If they start some silly "not without Mode S" malarky then it is going to be a major headache in the already cluttered skies of SE England.
Manston is not particularly busy with big jet traffic, I don't think they have any passenger stuff at all at the moment. The last passenger service provider failed after about a year of operation because the airport is in the back of beyond and could not attract sufficient customers. Unless there's a major change in circumstances they shouldn't require more airspace for the forseeable future.

[ChampChump]

If it was possible for Manston to get any quieter during the sports day, it did (IMO). I would imagine their upgraded airspace must have cost dearly and hate to think how their normal ops fare financially, let alone that.

If the bean counters rule the country, in this instance Manston should be going to Safety Com.

[Brian Hope]

I agree about 'sports day' Nic. We had to suffer a month of a whopping great lump of controlled airspace at Manston and they had little or none of the expected extra commercial traffic. Why wasn't a NOTAM issued suspending the controlled airspace when it was apparent it wasn't required? It forced choke points and great inconvenience for absolutely no purpose.

[ChampChump]

I think (but could well be wrong, as usual), they were obliged to report as a MOR anything and everything, so suffered the embarrassment of reporting a couple of folk inches outside our VFR corridor or inside their zone when they weren't actually handling anyone else.

A wind-down NOTAM would have been useful, but then someone would have had to admit to having predicted things wrongly and that would never do. I suppose the offical line is that they had to plan for the busiest case and stick to it, just in case there was a late rush of bisjets and 747s...

Forum chat elsewhere indicated no massive increase in traffic anywhere, except as the result of moving us all into smaller bits of air.

[ROB THOMASSON]

Well if they had to pay for it by the square mile as they proposed with the radio frequency's then maybe they would be a bit more thoughtful?

[Bob F]

Rob, you may have hit on a solution - if only!