New portal offers insight into airport operations for local residents
East Midlands Airport has launched a new online tool to provide advice and information about airport operations and the efforts taken to minimise impacts on surrounding communities.
The new portal East Midlands Insightfull provides interactive information which allows people to enter an address or drop a pin on a map location, prompting dashboard reports to appear relating to the exact location specified. These include the height and frequency of flights and noise data gathered from sound monitors in the area.
The site provides videos, links to background documents and answers to matters people often ask about, such as flight paths, night flights and noise monitoring arrangements. It outlines a range of topics including:
· Arrivals and departures take place in an easterly or westerly direction depending on wind direction, with westerly operations (arrivals coming in over the M1) in place 75% of the time
· The airport aims to operate a ‘continuous descent approach’ for arrivals which helps to reduce the noise of approaching aircraft by keeping them at higher altitudes longer and descending gradually. Last year the airport achieved this on average 91% of the time
· Departing aircraft follow one of five ‘noise preferential routes’ each 2.4km wide which have been established to minimise local communities being overflown, with aircraft required to follow these paths until at least 5000ft
· Typical arriving and departing flight paths are shown on interactive maps. The portal also provides some guidance on how to identify if you are being overflown
· Training flights follow circuits for pilot training that can be lower and don’t follow the routes of departing aircraft. The airport has put a number of restrictions in place to minimise their impact, including no training flights at weekends or on public holidays, and times of the day where training flights can be undertaken
· Night flights between 11pm and 7am are restricted, which includes banning the noisiest aircraft from operating during those times and imposing penalties if aircraft breach agreed noise levels
· A Sound Insulation Grant Scheme is available to homeowners most affected by aircraft noise to improve the sound insulation of their homes
· The airport engages with neighbouring communities in a range of ways throughout the year to ensure local people have opportunities to raise issues and the airport can keep them up to date with progress. The portal is a new way to make sure key up-to-date information is available to all.
Sue Thomas, Head of Noise and Community Engagement for East Midlands Airport’s parent company MAG, said: “We take our responsibility to be a good neighbour to our surrounding communities really seriously and there’s a wide range of practical things we do that demonstrate this.
“The idea behind the new portal is to put key information at the fingertips of anyone who wants to know how the airport operates and the measures we put in place to minimise our impact on people in the local area. The interactive features mean the information is relevant to specific locations to make it as helpful and meaningful as possible.
“It will hopefully help to dispel some myths, shine a light on the ongoing efforts to continuously improve the way we operate, and signpost people to further help and information.”
The new portal is available here: https://communitynoiseportal.eastmidlandsairport.com/