TCAS FAN
Their is a council meeting on Friday 03/02 ( Airport Consultative Committe) on the agenda is the runway extension update.
One would hope to get news on this,although I must say there there has been little or no news for many months. Surely the airport management have put in place the details to get this done by later in the year?

Don’t panic RW20, it’s commencing very soon!

AGS firstly have to secure project approval from CAA, who will want to see the extent of project, its scheduling and that adequate risk mitigation will be in place to permit a tolerably safe continuance of runway operations during the conduct of the work. Maybe some announcement of CAA project approval will be made at the meeting?

Once CAA approval has been given (which hopefully it has by now, or is imminent), details go to NATS AIM to compile the AIP Supplement. If the project is on schedule the Supplement should appear with the next batch around 9 March.

The AIP Supplement, which is a legal document, will be used by aircraft operators to determine the impact/restrictions on their operations during construction work.

Once construction work nears completion, if AGS are on the ball, they will have scheduled their surveyors to come in to verify the "as built" runway dimensions/elevations which, subject to CAA approval, should initially.be published via NOTAM before appearing in the AIP. The latter may have a two/three month lead time.

Once the NOTAM appears with extended runway declared distances aircraft operators can revise their performance charts to take advantage of the improvements that they will bring.

TCAS FAN. The airport may well be talking with their CAA aerodrome inspector behind the scenes. The formal submission of the CAP791 to the development team often happens just before the work commences. The safety case needs input from the contractor so difficult to produce it a long way in advance.
You are correct regarding AIP updates - they take a while to work through the system so may even precede the approval.
Not just a ground survey but a flight survey required too and I would suspect some kind of impact assessment on ATC services. If memory serves me, that's no less than three different CAA inspectorates.

A great recap on how things might move forward. However given the described timescale,its unilghtly the airport will see any benefits in 2023 at best!!
It seems to be a very long timescale ,set in very difficult financial times.

The CAP 791 process certainly does not happen shortly before work commences. Although, in accordance with CAP 791 criteria this is a "major" development, it is a very small scale project when compared with LHR's third runway, which also falls into the same classification!

While the designated CAA Aerodrome Inspector will be involved, the Aerodrome Development Team will manage the approvals process.

The CAP 791 process is set out in three stages Compliance, Control and Completion.

Assuming that an April start is still planned, IMHO on 1 February the first stage, Compliance, should by now be done and dusted. This describes the project and requires evidence to show that the development complies with all design and regulatory requirements.

Control, requires evidence to show that the project can be safely managed, especially as the runway will remain in use throughout the project. If not already completed and signed off by CAA, it should be shortly to enable NATS AIM to compile the AIP Supplement to publish in March.

Completion, requires the aerodrome operator to convince the CAA that the completed project is fit for purpose, in accordance with the design submitted/approved in the Compliance stage.

Prior to submitting the Completion documents to CAA, as mentioned in an earlier post, the extension will need to be surveyed to confirm such issues as dimensions and levels, together with details necessary to update the CAA required "Aerodrome Plan". In order to bring the extension into the earliest possible operational use scheduling of the surveyors is critical. As soon as the paint markings are completed they need to be onsite.

It will not be possible to complete AIP updates until the surveyors complete work on the "as built" development, compile a Report, and have it approved by NATS AIM.

The "flight survey" mentioned will be a flight check of the new lighting. Given that it is only a 164 metres extension lighting changes should consist of a new couple of pairs of elevated runway edge lights, insetting of RWY 20 approach lighting (about six lights?), addition of runway centreline lights, RWY 02 end-of-runway lights and turning area blue edge lights. The current RWY 20 threshold and PAPIs will be unchanged.

Lighting flight checks are normally carried out by the aircraft that conducts the navaid flight checks. As SOU has an ILS navaid flight checks are carried out every six months. It is accordingly possible that the subsequent navaid flight check could be brought forward to accommodate the lighting check. Worst case will be a supplementary lighting flight check,

ATC impact, negligible. Apart from the frustration of having to increase spacing between an arrival and a 20 departure, due to the increased backtrack (assuming that the TWY A "missing link" doesn't happen), a minor change to ATC's MATS Part 2 may be necessary. If it does this can be approved before project completion.

We can now but wait as to what AGS are going to reveal at Friday's Airport Consultative Committee meeting. Maybe then it can be ascertained if the project is on schedule.

With the runway extension, would the airport be able to sustain a 2-3 Airbus base?

If you are offering, yes!

My understanding from other posts is that as part of the runway extension project current Stands 1-5 will be re-aligned into 4 x A319/320 stands.

An Airbus base is very debatable still (as discussed many times previously) factors such as airport opening hours, and lack of CAT3 lighting being the main hurdles for any potential LCC. However as far as the newly extended runway and stand reconfiguration goes, yes it will be able to deal with those kinds of aircraft once works are all completed.

I guess opening hours and lighting are easily fixed so if an LCC was interested you can bet the airport will tell them it’s 24hrs and lighting will be upgraded.

Pretty sure it’s only a matter of time before 3 easyJet A320N are based there. The opportunity is frankly massive. Congestion in the terminal would also be a good problem for the airport to solve.

What’s interesting is that easyJet serves both BOH and SOU to GVA with pretty much the same capacity give or take. This could indicate that the region itself is underserved and both BOH and SOU will continue to grow. If GVA can be sustained by both then the likes of Palma or Malaga for example certainly can.

Sorry, you guess wrong.

H24 ops are never going to happen due to restrictions on operating hours specified in a Section 106 Agreement.

CAT 3 lighting would be extremely expensive to install, and make absolutely no business sense as RWY 20 operates with a CAT 1 ILS and RWY 02 operates with non-precision IAPs.

Due to obstacles off both ends of the runway nothing anywhere near CAT 3 minima is possible.

RWY 02 IAP minima could be improved if UK government regains access to the EU EGNOS satellite constellation (which they had until May 2021), or comes up with something to do the same job. That would then permit LPV minima to be restored for the current 02 RNP IAP.

Opening hours are non negotiable as outlined in the latest S106 and played a large part in the planning application being approved

An added crossbar on R02 wouldn’t go amiss as pretty standard lighting at present

Basically this is a case of where length matters. Based upon my understanding of EU OPS minima I would make the following observations.

Together with high intensity lighting that SOU has the RVR minima for IAP is determined by length of approach lighting. SOU has what EU OPS define as "intermediate lighting" which requires 420-719 metres length of lighting. RWY 02 currently has 426 metres and RWY 20 434 metres.

To go up to the next level "Full facilities" lighting the approach lighting needs to be 720 metres or greater. This would require lighting on 20 to extend past the large rail sheds. For this there could be a 150 metre reduction in the RVR minima for RWY 20 (700 to 550 metres). Purely on financial grounds cannot see this ever happening.

TCAS FAN
If Southampton wants based LCC aircraft,then they are going to have to upgrade there approach and landing aids including lighting,as as it stands SOU must have the highest minimas for landing in the UK!

Any update?

No contest. London City is the clear winner of that one.

Unfortunately I was elsewhere working. Do not know how long it takes for the meeting minutes to be completed and posted. Link below to see them when they appear::

https://meetings.eastleigh.gov.uk/mg...ough%20Council.

Nothing updated on the SOU website since announcement of the appeal rejection on 1 August 2022.

It's not two years since the appeals process was exhausted.