Living Near the Airport
We recognise that operating a major international airport can affect the lives of people who live nearby. Its effects include noise, congestion from road traffic, air pollution and loss of open land as well an impact on the local countryside.
There are a number of difficult issues to manage, especially on environmental impact and surface access. Over 15,000 people live within the airport’s 60 db LAeq noise contour and over 80,000 vehicles come to the airport site on a busy day.
To tackle these issues, we are implementing detailed action plans on Environment, Ground Transport and Land Use. These are available to download for free from our archive.
We try very hard to be a good neighbour and aim to give something back to the most affected communities, providing mitigation and compensation or through financial and practical support.
How do I record disturbance?
The measures outlined should reduce the disturbance local residents experience. If you are particularly disturbed by Airport operations please feel free to register your complaint.
Temporary change to the position of arriving aircraft
Works are currently under way, which mean aircraft are in a slightly different position on approach to Manchester Airport when landing from the northeast and southwest. The work is the final part of the complete replacement of the Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) for both ends of Runway 1, which commenced in September 2009.
We are carrying out the final stage of commissioning the new Instrument Landing System (ILS) used by aircraft landing from the Knutsford direction (the ILS for the opposite runway direction was completed earlier this year). Commissioning the new equipment requires 300 hours of trouble free operations and for safety reasons must be done with the ILS on other runways switched off. This means that when the new ILS is operating for test purposes, all landings from both the Stockport direction and the Knutsford direction will use navigational guidance provided by alternative equipment, known as the VOR and DME.
Approach and landings using the VOR and DME navigational equipment mean that aircraft approaching to land on our runways will be displaced from their usual precise centre line. Aircraft landing using these different navigational aids must be configured to land earlier in their approach. This means that with the flaps extended and under carriage deployed earlier, aircraft may also be noisier than usual.
It is our intention to build up the commissioning hours in blocks of time until the full 300 hours are reached. The blocks of time will be planned to limit the impact of disturbance to the communities affected and for example will not include the peak operating time of the morning period. Any easterly operations will accrue automatically towards the total without the need for any additional disturbance to residents living at the northeast end of our runways. Additionally, with Runway 2 being used during our current night works, no additional nuisance will be caused to residents living at the northeast end of our runways, whilst we operate the ILS for testing on Runway 1.
After three weeks of operations we have accrued just over 75% of the 300 hours we need.
We will return to normal operations as soon as possible. We will update these pages to advise you of our progress in achieving our commissioning hours. We do regret any disturbance that these works may cause and can assure you that we are working to complete works as quickly as possible and return to our preferred operations.
