Edlesborough Parish Council has recently received a copy of the Luton Airport AMR for 2008. This is an 89 page document published jointly by Luton Borough Council and London Luton Airport Operations Ltd. The AMR is published annually and provides detailed statistics relating to aircraft movements, passengers carried, runway usage, noise level monitoring, complaints, employment and surface access.
The following is a brief summary of the report with particular emphasis on those aspects that affect the Parish.
In 2008 the Airport handled 10.2 million passengers compared with 9.9 million in 2007, an increase of 2.5%. This was a less than the growth in 2007 of 8% but similar to that in 2006 which was 3%. The number of commercial passenger aircraft movements increased by almost 3% but the total number of aircraft movements decreased by 2%, primarily as a result of fewer cargo and general aviation (private aircraft, helicopters and business jets) movements.
The proportion of scheduled flights compared with charter flights continues to increase with 94% of passengers now being handled on scheduled flights. Easyjet remains by far the biggest operator at the Airport with 44,667 movements (52% of the total commercial movements) but this was down on 2007 when they had 47,074 movements (56% of the total). Ryanair was the next biggest operator with 12% of total movements and Wizz Air third with 10% of the total, both more than in 2007.
There was a decrease of 4% in night movements from 10,290 in 2007 to 9,881 in 2008 and the split was 92% day / 8% night in 2008 compared with 91% day / 9% night in 2007.
The split of Westerly to Easterly operations in 2008 was 70% to 30%; very similar to previous years. The significance of this is that during Westerly operations, approximately 20% of departing aircraft use a flight path that nominally overflies the Parish (Dagnall, Edlesborough and Northall). During Easterly operations, 100% of arriving aircraft overfly Dagnall.
It is generally agreed that departing as opposed to arriving aircraft cause the greatest noise nuisance and interestingly, the actual flight track plots included in the report indicate that a large proportion of Olney 26 flight path departures turn north before they reach us, (Olney 26 is the northbound departure route that overflies the Parish). This would suggest that during Westerly operations we probably had approximately 6% of departing aircraft overflying the Parish rather than the 20% that we would have had if all aircraft followed the designated flight path for longer. The reason that so many planes divert before they reach us is that they are currently only obliged to follow the designated flight path until they reach 3,000ft (4,000ft at night).
Finally the number of complaints received by the Airport reduced in 2008 to 1,174 compared with 1,213 in 2007. This was despite a significant increase during the NATS TCN consultation period in 2008 which undoubtedly raised awareness of current aircraft operations and resulted in an increased level of complaints. There were slightly more complaints from the Parish in 2008, 5 from Dagnall and 2 from Edlesborough, compared with just 1 from Dagnall in 2007. Complaints from neighbouring towns and villages were as follows:
Dunstable 2 (0 in 2007)
Eaton Bray 15 (8 in 2007)
Ivinghoe 3 (0 in 2007)
Leighton Buzzard 11 (7 in 2007)
Little Gaddesden 28 (16 in 2007)
Marsworth 1 (1 in 2007)
Mentmore 12 (14 in 2007)
Pitstone 6 (2 in 2007)
Ringshall 2 (1 in 2007)
Slapton 14 (16 in 2007)
Stanbridge 1 (0 in 2007)
Studham 18 (34 in 2007)
Whipsnade 1 (2 in 2007)
The level of complaints from a parish as large as Edlesborough remains surprisingly low, especially in comparison with some of our neighbouring parishes (Eaton Bray, Little Gaddesden, Mentmore, Slapton and Studham). It suggests that either our parishioners have a much higher level of tolerance to aircraft disturbance, or that we are located in a rather more favourable location.
John Wilkinson - September 2009