CTR for EGMC

[orionsbelt]

Now that Easyjet have committed to Operation out of EGMC, how long will it be before the Class D CTR/CTA question is raised.
Give it a year! Make the most of it now chaps they will do a Norwich on you soon, up will go the landing and approach fees, no more training IFR slots.
Bad news See below
***

The Sun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EasyJet launches Southend routes

New routes ... easyJet to operate from Southend next year
BRITAIN has a new international airport - SOUTHEND.
EASYJET today announced plans to launch ten routes from the Essex coastal town next April.

Bosses claim it will make London Southend a key "gateway to the Olympics" from cities such as Milan, Madrid and Berlin.

The first confirmed routes are Southend to Ibiza, Barcelona and Faro in Portugal.

Tickets go on sale in July - despite the fact the airport has yet to finish a new terminal building and extend the RUNWAY.

EasyJet customer director Catherine Lynn said: "This will put Southend on the map."

Hundreds of jobs will be created - with some transferring from Stansted.

Southend currently only offers flights to Jersey and Ireland but the owners - the Stobart Group - is targeting two million passengers a year.

Airport boss Alistair Welch boasted a new rail route into London would give passengers the fastest "plane to train" service in the country.

He said: "If you're only carrying hand luggage you'll be able to go from standing on the top of the stand leaving the plane - to the train platform in 15 minutes."

It's full circle for the airport. In the Sixties, Southend was Britain's THIRD biggest - behind Heathrow and Manchester.

It laid claim to having the world's busiest route - Southend to Ostend.

[Heliplane]

"London" Southend ............. it's been said before here but it gets me every time.

[TCAS FAN]

"If you're only carrying hand luggage you'll be able to go from standing on the top of the stand leaving the plane - to the train platform in 15 minutes."

Did it in less than 10 minutes at Southampton - back to the spin drawing board?

[10W]

CAS (T) for Southend to help cope with the predicted Olympics traffic is already being consulted on. Note that this for TEMPORARY airspace before people get too carried away.

London 2012 Olympics CAS T Consultation (http://www.nats.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/London2012OlympicsCASTConsultation.pdf)

[Genghis the Engineer]

I don't suppose it's likely to create an opportunity to fly in, park your aircraft for a few days, and head off somewhere else via Easyjet?

It would be interesting to try.

(Mind you it might be possible from some of the other regionals used by budget airlines - anybody tried?)

G

[2 sheds]

If I were a pilot or passenger flying into/from Southend, I would welcome the protection of a Class D CTR connecting with the adjacent airways system.

What is this "make the most of it now chaps..." attitude with the automatic implication that CAS is a Bad Thing? Presumably you want the "right" to fly inverted half a mile outside the ATZ across the bows of an IFR aircraft on final - which is precisely one of the "rights" excercised by some clown just after the CTR was removed those few years ago.

You would not believe the process involved in establishing CAS - and if there were to be an application, all interests have more than sufficient opportunity to make their case.

2 s

[IO540]

There is no issue with CAS as such. The issue is that once the airport managers, with their fresh MBAs, see ££££ in the form of nice clean jets paying them a few hundred £ a pop, they are quite likely to want to push out "dirty scruffy" GA.

That's what happened at Aberdeen, where GA is only just hanging on, and many other places around Europe.

Once landing fees hit the £50 mark, the traffic will fall to nearly zero (just a bit of high end IFR traffic) and then you usually see a collapse into Signature-style £200 mandatory handling.

[Spitoon]

I'm with 2 sheds on this. If there are going to be regular passenger carrying flights in and out of MC it is only reasonable for the passengers to get the protection of CAS. As a controller, I think Class D is wonderful (although I know not all of my brethren agree) because it enables VFR to carry on with little restriction when it's possible and for sensible handling of VFR/IFR mixes - note that I'm not suggesting that VFR and IFR should be separated.

The problem from an ATC point of view is the controllers and their managers who see the CAS as 'theirs' and only for the aircraft taking off or landing at the airport in question. A more appropriate view might be that they are there to manage the airspace so that everyone can do what they want as far as is consistent with providing the necessary protection for fare-paying passengers. It's unfortunate that those in the CAA who are responsible for establishing airspace appear to have little interest in ensuring that it is subsequently managed in a way that ensures access to GA when it's practical.

[10W]

Bravo Spitoon :ok:

[Sir George Cayley]

Spitoon,

Good point well made. But is there a reason for this in the way the CAA is organised?

I think DAP do the starting bit of setting up the CAS - CAP725 covers it.

But then is it not SRG's Air Traffic guys who audit MATS ll and local competency? Could this be part of the problem?

Sir George Cayley

[Spitoon]

@Silvaire1 - if we go back to basic principles ATC is there to provide the appropriate service to all airspace users and it is a State responsibility to to ensure that the requisite services are provided. Issues of who pays the bills and pritavisation of service providers may present challenges to well established practices but the fundamental principles remain sound and are embodied in the Chicago Convention).

I was not really intending to suggest that fare-paying passengers deserve a better level of protection than anyone in any other aircraft operating to the same rules and procedures but rather to illustrate the most common justification for establishing CAS.

Going back to the principles, the Chicago Convention places obligations on States (amongst other things) to put the aviation infrastructure in place. It is left to the States to determine how best to do this and, in most cases, rules are issued and a regulator is established to check that the rules are followed. Commercial pressures have been perceived or invented by today's privatised and semi-privatised service providers and have led to some believing that their services should only be made available to those who directly pay the bills. In an ideal world the regulator acts as a counterbalance and ensures that the relevant principles remain in effect.

Of course, the world changes and the way in which the regulator will have to do its job today will be very different in some ways to the way it worked 25 or 30 years ago. Unfortunately - and probably justifying their common reputations as dinosaurs - many working within the regulators (and often those at senior levels who set policy) have not worked in a service provider for many years and assume that the nothing has changed since they left.

Sir George hits on a large part of the problem in the UK in that two different parts of the CAA have responsibilities with respect to airspace and regulating it. From my experience these two departments work differently and don't see eye-to-eye on the way each other works and sometimes indulge in a bit of infighting and point-scoring at the expense of setting clear regulations for service providers. This is compounded by a lack of clear direction and control from Government/DfT who, certainly in the past, paid little care for ensuring compliance with international obligations etc. and more for getting the major service providers and airports sold off.

It would be nice to think that things will get better in the future as Europe 'takes over' but, sadly, the way things are going it looks to me like we will have similar problems with different agencies dealing with different parts of the system and the potential for some of the basics to slip between cracks.