We were not scaremongering

2021.

May we suggest that Gatwick re-read the final master plan that clearly states when referring to the northern runway, that needs to be rebuilt 12m north from its current location, that on page 10 point 9: “By operating both runways simultaneously, we would be able to add between 10 and 15 additional hourly aircraft movements in the peak hours, which could deliver up to 70million passengers by 2032.”

The master plan stated an additional 55,000 flights a year with two runways on top of the 285,000 pre Covid, but this was reduced by Gatwick to 34,000 additional flights a year. (5.2.3) but with growth from the main runway using new technology.

Gatwick’s second runway will take annual flights to a staggering 382,000 (Gatwick press conference August 25, 2021) a year using the same flight paths as they are today, although the northern routes will shift north – the Civil Aviation Authority do not require a consultation for airspace change (CAP1908).

The master plan goes on to detail: “5.3.10 We do not consider that significant changes to Gatwick’s departure and arrivals routes would be necessary to operate the standby(northern/emergency) runway...As is the case today, aircraft departing from the standby runway would be able to follow very similar flight profiles to those of aircraft departing the main runway.”

Flights paths will then potentially be subject to changes post Gatwick 2 with FASIS (5.3.10 master plan) the modernisation of airspace, we quote: “However, as explained earlier in Chapter 3, these flight paths may change in any case as part of a wider, government and CAA sponsored airspace modernisation programme