Flightmapping > News > August 04 > Coventry Airport Deal
Airport boss offers deal on passengers Aug 31 2004
Source: Coventry Evening Telegraph
Coventry Airport boss Bill Savage today offered to sign a "binding agreement" restricting the numbers of passengers to two million a year.
In a surprise new move, Mr Savage is also promising to ban all noisy night-time freight flights - which have been the cause of complaints for years - if Warwick District Council approves an application for a permanent terminal building at Baginton.
A decision is due to be made on September 11.
Mr Savage said: "We are offering to ban the noisier nighttime freight flights which at the moment account for some 40 movements a night. The older aircraft will not be used.
"We will also fund insulation of properties affected and sign a binding agreement on the overall numbers of flights throughout the day."
But Warwick and Leamington MP James Plaskitt, who has supported campaigners against expansion of the airport, said today: "Mr Savage may say there will a two million passenger limit but I am not convinced.
"With the exception of Gatwick, there is not one single airport in Britain that has ever stopped at a particular point. If the demand is there, they grow.
"Why, when we have Birmingham Airport which already has all the infrastructure, do we also need a replica based at Coventry?"
Mr Plaskitt, who is not allowed to speak at the district council meeting on September 11, says he will be there to observe proceedings.
He says he is cynical about the timing of Mr Savage's renewed claim for restrictions on the size at Coventry and says it cuts little ice in relation to the government White Paper on airport expansion published last year.
Archy Muir, chairman of the Campaign Against Expansion of Coventry Airport, who lives in Stoneleigh, said: "There will be a smile among protesters at Mr Savage's cynical comments so close to the hearing."
Protesters are convinced that the meeting at Leamington town hall will not be the end of the matter.
If district councillors approve the new terminal buildings, the decision will immediately be called in by the government for a public inquiry. If they reject the application then airport operator Tui will launch an immediate appeal.
In Coventry, airport supporter James Avery, who has his own travel web-site, flightmapping.com, said: "I think people fear that Coventry will become like Stansted but I see the expansion of Coventry Airport as a very positive development.
"Tui is going to interesting locations like Naples, Marseille and Venice (I think they meant Valencia) and was the first airport in the UK to launch these destinations outside London.
"It's very good for business and the image of the city to step out of the shadow of Birmingham and build its own identity."
Flightmapping comment:
This cap is a constructive move from the airport, although they have not yet detailed for how long such an agreement would last. Yet again, Mr Plaskitt refuses to listen to reason, and continues with his blind attacks on the airport. Just because there is only one such "cap" in place at present, which prevents Gatwick from developing a new runway before 2019, does not mean that such a cap could not be applied at Coventry.
With the general election around the corner, Mr Plaskitt is desperate to appease the nimby mob, yet it is odd that he continues to refer to the White Paper, the very document which proposed the ludicrous Rugby Airport in the first place, and which has done nothing to contain the growth in demand for flights projected over the next 30 years. It is also blatantly misleading by both Plaskitt and CAECA to make out that White Paper is against development at Coventry Airport, when it quite clearly states that this is a matter for local determination.
The airport appear less willing to offer a cap based on movements or overall noise levels, and it seems slightly odd to base the cap on 70% occupancy of aircraft. In effect, if certain flights from Coventry prove to be more popular than expected, this cap could be exceeded, although the schedule would then have to be changed to compensate for this.
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