Why you need to know about aviation developments

One way or another a significant number of people are affected by aviation - either as passengers, employees or as residents subjected to aircraft noise and related pollution. With the number of aircraft passengers expected to reach 500 million a year by around 2030, there is an urgent need to address aviation growth in the UK.

Tough decisions about how to reconcile the competing concerns of local communities, passengers, airlines and airport operators need to be taken. The environmental, social and economic balancing act needs to be achieved. SASIG is a group of Local Authorities that work together on major aviation issues. Our Local Authority membership covers the main political parties and we can thus offer a broad, non-Party political view on these issues.

SASIG works with Government and the aviation industry to consider the impacts of the forecast growth from 241 million passengers in 2007 to between 415 & 500 million passengers a year by 2030. To be acceptable this growth must be secured in a sustainable way. The UK's airports vary in size so dramatically that national policies also need local interpretation.

Since the May 2010 General Election, and the instigation of a Conservative & Liberal Democrat coalition Government, we have entered a new era in aviation policy. The major developments supported in the prevailing policy - the 2003 'Air Transport White Paper' - have been abandoned by the coalition Government, leaving that policy obsolete.

The issues below need to be considered in the formulation of a new improved national aviation policy.

Traditionally, growth in aviation has been at the high-end of passenger demand forecasts. In addition, market developments, such as no-frills carriers, are affecting rates of growth. The coalition Government will need SASIG's help in deciding whether to accommodate the shortfall or not meet the demand.

SASIG highlights the need to address the detrimental local and global environmental effects of aviation so as to ensure the industry achieves sustainability in its development.

The Government and the aviation industry face a major challenge in managing the impacts that growth in air travel presents. The need to address global climate change is now of the utmost urgency. SASIG suggests that passengers need to be better informed of the local and global impacts of their air travel.

SASIG takes on the challenge of implementing a new improved strategy following the abandonment of the policy laid out in the Aviation White Paper of December 2003. SASIG is working with the Government and the industry to produce and implement policies that ensure the right amount of growth in the right places.

The Government will need to tackle the difficulties of providing for expansion of the aviation industry whilst complying with climate change commitments and local accountability.

SASIG demands that the convenience of passengers does not outweigh the quality of life of local people who are overflown every day and suffer from noise, poor air quality and road congestion.

The Government will need to address the issue of whether some airports are too close to long established urban areas, such that the airport should not grow and/or land uses around airports should be changed to those which are not sensitive to noise and air pollution.

SASIG supports the controlled expansion of airports in all regions of the UK outside the South East, so that local residents and businesses are well served from a local airport for business and leisure purposes.

The challenge to the coalition Government is to ensure that air services are provided in such a way that travellers minimise the number of occasions on which they fly from an airport outside their local region, whilst protecting those living near airports from adverse environmental effects.

SASIG recognises that aviation is important to the economy of Britain; however, a re-evaluation of the contribution from this sector must be revisited in light of repeated inaccuracies in the Government's approach.

The Government will need to give priority to initiatives that remove barriers to the appropriate growth of regional airports, including the provision of improved public transport and road infrastructure. The shortage of runway space in the South East, that could best have been overcome by the provision of a new airport, will continue to inhibit services from regional airports to London. The concept of a new airport, with minimal environmental impact and high quality surface access, has yet to be adequately considered.

SASIG believes that the 2003 White Paper lacked vision for the future of aviation in the South East. New runways at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted could never have been judged to be sustainable and the new Government is to be congratulated for having abandoned these schemes. Development of regional airports should have been supported by allocated access to the London airports.

Public pressure will be exerted on the Government to impose targets that have to be met and to resist demands from the aviation industry to reduce the severity of such controls. Traditionally, the aviation industry has failed to deliver competent compliance with the targets and standards that have been set.

SASIG expects the aviation industry to comply with demanding targets so as to take responsibility for the impacts of their activities - noise and air pollution, urbanisation, and surface access transport. SASIG promotes the phasing out of most night flights except from airports where few people are disturbed.

The Government will be left in no doubt that people living around airports demand minimum interference in their sleep between 11pm and 7am. The coalition Government will find that residents who are regularly disturbed strongly object to airlines advertising night flights that offer a restful sleep for passengers while disturbing the sleep of people living under the flightpaths.