By Plane Wrong, Apr 26 2017 09:00AM
The CAA has now issued its report on the changes to Route 4.
The decision is to approve the route and finally close the Airspace Change Process that began back in 2012.
In coming to its decision, the CAA has obtained a number of undertakings from Gatwick to investigate various things. These include:
- the possibility of raising the height of both Routes 3 & 4 by 1,000 ft,
- a second route parallel to the current route along the easterly portion, i.e. after the bend, that would be alternated in some way with the current route,
- contacting airlines that are flying outside the noise monitoring swathe of the NPR with a view to getting them to adjust their operating procedures to improve performance round the turn.
- the possibility of putting some Route 4 traffic onto other routes.
These are areas for consideration by Gatwick. With the exception of the third bullet, they may not lead to any change as they will need to be fully explored and consulted on if change is to be proposed. They are also complex and Plane Wrong wishes to understand them better. Hence we have raised a number of queries with the CAA for clarification before commenting further.
We will also be reviewing our strategy for both Routes in the light of these developments. In order to do so we will be creating a log of all the Gatwick issues that we believe any solution should address. Please feel free to let us know (by replying to this email) if there is a particular issue that you think we might not have captured. It would be helpful if you can be as specific as possible i.e. which Route causes it, when did it start, what locations roughly are affected, why you believe it is unfair and needs to be changed.
Thanks for your ongoing support and please keep complaining to Gatwick about planes that disturb you.
Best wishes,
Mike Ward
Chair
PLANEWRONG
