Foggy? It wasn't as bad as you think!

Monday 27 March 2017

You might think we've had lots of fog recently, particularly if you were one of the many delayed at the Airport - but the latest official stats suggest it wasn't nearly as bad as we might think.

They show that foggy weather only caused nine hours disruption last month out of a total of 392 opening hours for the Airport - just 2.3%. The low numbers have led the airport authorities to rule out spending a lot of money on ways to keep the airport open longer on foggy days, such as by extending the runway.

Those figures are broadly in line with those of last year, when the biggest disruption recorded was in June, with almost 18 hours of disruption out of 435 opening hours.

Over the year, less than 5% of the Island's total flying hours were affected.

In a post shared on their website, Ports of Jersey say they are: "... only too aware of the challenges that it (fog disruption) presents to our passengers. Their frustration is shared by the airport, its airlines and their ground handlers. After all, it is all of ours' objective to keep people and aircraft moving as smoothly and as safely as possible; when poor weather conditions prevent this from happening it has a negative impact on the overall operations of the business and of its transport providers."

"Jersey Airport has the same Instrument Landing System (ILS) equipment as have other airports in the UK, including Southampton, Birmingham, Heathrow and Gatwick.  Jersey Airport is classed as a 'Category 1' ILS, whereas despite having the same technical equipment, Heathrow and Gatwick are Category 3, which allows them to operate in worse conditions than Jersey. The differences between these larger airports and ours is they have longer runways, better topography (i.e. they don't have a cliff at the end of their runway) and fewer obstacles (i.e. our arrivals building and St Peter's Church)."

The team at the airport say they are working on keeping the disruption at a minimum. One of the actions they recently undertook was the introduction of a new 'Lower than Cat 1 ILS' procedure, which enables aircraft with the correct equipment on board and appropriately trained aircrew to land in lower visibility conditions than the usual Cat 1 ILS.

There is no plan, however, to increase the operating capability of the airport as Ports of Jersey say it would incur a, "...significant financial investment, likely in excess of £100m," potentially by extending the runway. 

"Unfortunately, this would severely impact on the nearby St Peter's Village (including the Parish Church) and a relocation of the main road between the airport and the Village. While funding for such a major project could potentially be found to partially improve less than 5% of its available flying hours, we do believe the impact on our community would be even greater."

You can read the full post here.