Examination of Witnesses (Questions 246
- 259)
WEDNESDAY 12 JANUARY 2005
MRS DOREEN
BROWN, MR
BRIAN WHITE,
MR ROBIN
MCMINNIS
AND MR
HARRY BAIRD
Q246 Chairman: Thank you for attending
and for being patient during the division. We are running very
late. I do know that some of you are travelling back this evening,
so our intention is to get you away before six o'clock, which
means that our questions will have to be very swift and your answers
brief. Before we start the formal part of the evidence, I believe
you wish to speak to us in confidence about the announcement on
the Route Development Fund.
Mr McMinnis: Thank you, Chairman,
for the opportunity to have this informal word with the Committee.
I am Robin McMinnis, with the Department of Enterprise, Trade
and Investment, and in addition I am a director of the air route
development. I am conscious that there will be a major investment
announcement in Belfast tomorrow morning about additional direct
flights to European destinations. I did not want to come along
today and then you have to read about it tomorrow in the papers.
I have sought and obtained the approval therefore of the airport
authority concerned to share that information with you, but I
do stress that it is strictly embargoed until ten-thirty tomorrow
morning. You may remember that just before Christmas we were successful
in securing an Easyjet route to Geneva. Tomorrow we will be announcing
two other routes, one to Berlin and one to Rome, direct from Belfast
International Airport, starting in July and working up to a full
daily service within four months. That would bring it to nine
the new routes introduced as a result of the Air Route Development
Fund a year ago.
Q247 Chairman: That is excellent
news. I am sure it will be widely applauded and welcomed, particularly
by those at Belfast International Airport. I would appreciate
it if people would remember that that information is embargoed
until ten-thirty tomorrow morning. We move on to the formal evidence.
I would like to start with a very general question, just to assist
the Committee. The Department for Transport has overall responsibility
for the strategic framework for the aviation sector across the
UK, but uniquely I would imagine, given the role of Northern Ireland,
the Northern Ireland Department has a say and interest in the
way in which policy is developed. Could you assist us in talking
through how that relationship works: which issues do the Northern
Ireland departments tend to take more of a view on, and how does
that relationship work in respect of the formation of the White
Paper and the impact of the White Paper within the Province?
Mrs Brown: Civil aviation is a
reserved matter and therefore the Department for Transport is
the lead department there. It has responsibility for international
agreements, for public service obligations in relation to air
routes, for slot policy, for safety issues and for aerodrome licensing.
It is responsible for preparing the Air Transport White Paper.
The Airports (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 gave functions to what
was then the Department of the Environment, and those functions
covered land use planning, assessment and mitigation of local
environmental impacts including noise control at airports, surface
transport and links to airports, and the funding of aerodromes
in public ownership, with the power to make bye-laws there. In
terms of how we relate to the Department for Transport in the
development of the White Paper, it has been an open consultative
arrangement where we have had the opportunity to feed in concerns
or preoccupations that were peculiar to Northern Ireland, in the
hope that they would be taken account of in the Department for
Transport's development policy on a UK-wide basis. We continue
to liaise with the Department for Transport on how the Transport
White Paper is being taken forward locally in Northern Ireland.
Q248 Chairman: Obviously, there is
the added problem of competition between airports within Northern
Ireland and competition from Dublin. Who takes a view on that?
Is that something the Department would deal with, or the Northern
Ireland Office?
Mrs Brown: I suppose both. The
Air Transport White Paper looked at the airports in Northern Ireland,
and it did not set out that there was a problem in terms of competition
between the airports. It was certainly looking to the future and
spoke of all three airports as having a role, although in the
case of City of Derry Airport it was perhaps less direct in what
it might mean. It was certainly envisaging a continuation and
the expansion of both Belfast International Airport and Belfast
City Airport. In relation to leakage, the impact of Dublin Airport,
it did comment on that, but leakage was going to be inevitable.
There were some things that could be done. It was never going
to be possible to halt leakage because of differences in scale,
but actually it referred to the Air Route Development Fund as
a very powerful mechanism to counteract leakage where that was
going to be feasible, and where Northern Ireland could justify
and support the development of new routes.
Q249 Chairman: The reason I mention
Dublin is that many of our witnesses have talked about the absolute
fundamental importance of maintaining the Heathrow links from
Northern Ireland in respect of onward journeys and onward passages
and trade. Can you elaborate on the view that you have already
expressed on the PSO mechanism being used to secure routes and
necessary slots for Heathrow services? It is said that the Department
of Transport should be strongly urged to make representations
to the European Commission to get rules relating to PSOs changed.
Can you comment on those two issues?
Mrs Brown: We believe that under
the European rules it is not possible to make a case for a PSO
that would guarantee slots at Heathrow. The PSO mechanism simply
allows support for routes from city to city, so we could not,
even if we were introducing a PSO mechanism, guarantee that that
would reserve slots at Heathrow. The fact is that currently we
are very well served with connections to London, be it Gatwick,
Stansted or Luton, and although we only have one carrier currently
going into Heathrow, when you take account of all the other carriers
going in to other airports, we cannot make a case that we are
badly served; so the PSO mechanism, in our view, does not come
into play. That said, we have stressed on a number of occasions
to the Department for Transport, as have a lot of the regions
of the United Kingdom, the importance that we attach to having
slots at Heathrow, because of the interlining capability, which
does not exist at the other airports. We therefore continue to
make our representations to the Department for Transport, but
ultimately we are in their hands
Q250 Chairman: Obviously, we will
report at the time, but it is important to place on record the
unease that exists that even though London may be well served—and
it certainly is in terms of the other airports—there is
a huge risk that trade could be lost to Dublin as it increases
its international flights, and that those slots at Heathrow, which
enable onward travel, are very important to people within the
Province, and also for those companies that would wish to service
that onward travel. I will leave that there, because I am conscious
of the speed with which we need to progress.
Q251 Mr Bailey: The planning agreement
at Belfast City Airport is out for consultation at the moment.
I understand that the airport management has asked for an increase
in the "seat sold" limit only, although FlyBE recently
told us that they would like some extension of the operating hours
in the evening to enable them to consider European flights. Can
you clarify whether the planning agreement is open for consideration,
or is it limited just to the seat issue?
Mrs Brown: I will ask Harry Baird
from the Planning Service to pick up on this.
Mr Baird: I can confirm that when
the City Airport operators made a submission to the department
they referred only to the seats for sale aspect. However, when
we went forward with our public consultation in November we indicated
that we would accept comments on that planning agreement but we
emphasised that the City Airport at this moment in time was simply
looking for a review of the seats for sale. To date we have had
something like 14 submissions and within those quite a number
of issues have been raised. The other key issues within the planning
agreement, for example, the time slots, the air traffic movements,
the flight routes, etc, have all been raised and we will take
account of that as we move forward.
Q252 Mr Bailey: Following the end
of the consultation what is the process that you will be adopting
and when do you expect to make a decision?
Mr Baird: In meetings with elected
representatives, and indeed in our correspondence with other interested
parties, we have indicated that our Minister, Angela Smith, will
take a decision on the best way forward when we have received
all the representations. A couple of key parties have asked for
an extension to the timescale, for example, Belfast City Council,
and indeed Antrim Council, so it is probably going to be early
February before we get in all the representations but at some
time during February the Minister will be taking stock and deciding
on the best way forward which may well include a public inquiry.
As I say, she has already indicated that to the elected representatives.
Q253 Mr Bailey: We have heard that
effectively the potential for future growth at the airport without
a change to the planning agreement is very limited. Apart from
the current consultation exercise what analysis has been undertaken
on the benefits and disbenefits that would arise from changing
the planning agreement and what are the conclusions of this analysis?
In particular, how do you achieve a balance between the potential
benefit to the wider population against the disbenefit to those
who would be directly affected by changes?
Mr Baird: When the last planning
application was submitted for the new terminal building we employed
independent expert advisers to the department in dealing with
that application. Since that and since the review we have not
taken any further independent views but we do reserve the right
to bring on board independent experts as we move forward. Certainly
if we go down the route of a public inquiry it would be our intention
to employ consultants expert in the aviation field to advise us
on the issues that have been raised and the best way to take those
forward.
Q254 Mr Bailey: The White Paper in
December 2003 projected that passenger numbers at the City Airport
could reach four million by the year 2030 and encouraged a review
of the planning agreement if this was requested. Would you accept
that to achieve this projection would require a relaxing of the
current planning agreement?
Mr Baird: It is probably a little
premature to give an outcome to the review that we are just embarking
on. The City Airport themselves, in the figures that they are
putting forward, were talking about something like three million
passengers to 2018 and in the context of the 1.5 million seats
for sale, which is both into the airport and out, that at the
minute is amounting to something like 2.2 million passengers,
so as an indicator of growth certainly there is that increase
there, but from the point of view of the outcome of the review
the City Airport have asked us to look at that. We are going to
take on board the comments that come in and probably take in expert
advice, perhaps even through a public inquiry process, so I do
not think it would be right to pre-empt the outcome of that.
Chairman: You cannot say we did not try.
Q255 Reverend Smyth: The original
numbers were based upon the smaller 330 plane with a louder, noisier
engine. The larger planes are much more silent and can take far
more people. Therefore, is there a compensation factor involved?
Mr Baird: As I mentioned earlier,
there were a number of other factors in the agreement but one
of those is, as you say, air traffic movements. At the time the
1.5 million seats for sale coincidentally amounted to 1.5 million
passengers because at that time the payload was approximately
50%. Now I understand that is up to 70% and, as you say, there
are larger planes and there are 45,000 air traffic movements allowed
in the agreement, so it probably would make sense to take a look
at both those factors. Indeed, I am aware and it has been raised
with you when the residents' groups came, that if you go back
to the Belfast Harbour Plan and the public inquiry that was held
then, the Commissioner, in making his report to the department,
indicated at that time that perhaps there was a better way of
monitoring the operations rather than through passenger numbers
which, as you say, at that time were limited because of the then
building. Since then we have got a new terminal building and therefore
in a sense there is another criterion for the passenger numbers.
The short answer after that explanation would be yes: both issues
would need to be looked at.
Mrs Brown: There is a lot of headroom
in the air transport movement figure. Last year there were only
around 33,000 ATMs at the City Airport. At the same time the seats
for sale cap is close to being reached.
Chairman: Given the need to increase
the numbers it is leg room that most of us are worried about rather
than headroom, but that is a different subject.
Q256 Mr Campbell: I will not ask
anyone to prejudge the outcome of the consultation exercise, let
alone any public inquiry but, so that the committee can be clear,
if we were to assume an outcome that was one of no change how
would the overall policy objectives of air transport in Northern
Ireland be met?
Mrs Brown: It would appear that
the City Airport would not be able to develop in line with the
expectations of the Air Transport White Paper because, given that
it is coming close to the cap on seats for sale, there is little
scope for further development there. Given that it is currently
about 2.2 million passengers a year, there would not be scope
for it to reach the four million envisaged by the White Paper.
The impact of that I assume would mean that the extra demand would
have to be displaced elsewhere, most likely to Belfast International
and possibly some to Dublin, but I am only speculating on that.
Q257 Mr Campbell: Has any research
been done on that? You speculated on Dublin but is there anything
more substantial to it?
Mrs Brown: No, because we are
awaiting the outcome of the current review. If there is a change
in the restrictions on City Airport the impact of that would be
taken into account. If there is no change then we will have to
look at the impact of that but until we have the review completed
we do not know what scenario we are facing.
Q258 Mr Campbell: Perhaps I can move
on to the issue of noise control which you are well aware is one
that is raised on a regular basis. What action does the department
take to monitor noise control and have you any results to give
us of recent monitoring?
Mrs Brown: The Belfast City Airport
will have quite a lot of detailed information on that but I can
tell you from the Department's perspective what we do. The airport
itself generates indicative noise contours on a regular basis
and these are verified independently by experts who also carry
out on-the-spot noise checks and DRD in turn validates those findings
every two years, I believe. We did commission Professor Callum
Thomas, the Professor of Sustainable Aviation at Manchester University,
to carry out a study for us in July 2003 and he produced a report
which can be made available to the committee. It is on the DRD
website and it is really a good practice guide to the assessment
and management of aircraft noise at Northern Ireland airports.
Following on from that, which pointed to the need for improvements
to be made, BCA itself took some action. It formed a Noise Management
Committee on which DRD is represented. It began to collate and
analyse noise complaints and, importantly, it developed an action
plan to review its operating procedures in the light of the recommendations
in this good practice guide. Progress on that front is monitored
at quarterly intervals. DRD, however, is also just about to launch
a further review of the noise environment at BCA because we want
to explore whether there are better, perhaps more sophisticated,
ways of approaching the measurement and monitoring of noise and
we are going to employ experts to measure what is going on at
the City Airport through this summer and into the winter so that
it is covering a wide range of weather and operating conditions.
It will advise us on what it finds and it will advise us on
alternative methods of going about noise measurement and monitoring
for the improvement of the situation at the airport. The Air Transport
White Paper is very conscious of the need to be sensitive to the
environmental impact of airports wherever they are and the whole
White Paper is about a balance between commercial development
and environmental impact which developing air travel can have,
so we consider this to be an extremely important area to take
forward, especially in relation to Belfast City Airport.
Q259 Mr Campbell: Just for clarity,
to whom do you say we should go for the most recent statistics
on noise control? The airport or DRD?
Mr White: If you are looking for
things like complaints and so on, those are statistics which are
developed and maintained by the airport and these are the things
which would come forward to the airport forum on a regular basis.
If it is more detailed information about the methodology for the
absolute measurement of noise levels and the contours and so on
which my colleague was talking about, that would be to us.
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