The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Airport activists arrested
Demonstration: Extinction Rebellion protests target London terminal
Extinction Rebellion activists including an 83-year-old man have been arrested amid demonstrations aimed at closing a London airport.
A flight from London City Airport to Dublin was delayed when a protester on board stood up just as it was due to take off and began to deliver a lecture on climate change.
And 83-year-old Phil Kingston was among those arrested as hundreds of people blocked the main
“There are many areas of our lives that are going to have to change”
entrance for passengers – his third arrest as part of Extinction Rebellion protests in the past week.
Activists are attempting a three day “Hong Kong-style occupation of the terminal” to highlight what they call the “incompatibility” of the London airport’s planned expansion with meeting the government’s legal commitment to cut emissions to net-zero by 2050.
At City Airport, passengers arriving for flights yesterday were redirected to a second terminal entrance and were not allowed to enter the building without showing their boarding cards.
An activist who gave her name as Claire, 51, said: “I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few hours, but I do know that a number of people have come here, City Airport, today to make the statement Police speak to activists blocking a road at the airport
that there are many areas of our lives that are going to have to change because of the climate crisis we’ve created, and one is flying.”
An airport spokesman said: “We continue to work closely with the Metropolitan Police to ensure the safe operation of the airport, which remains
fully open and operational.” But one flight to Dublin was delayed when an activist staged an on-board protest.
BBC political editor Nicholas Watt, who was on the flight, tweeted to say a “smartly dressed man in late middle age” stood up to deliver a lecture on climate change in the aisle, and politely declined to sit down when asked by cabin crew.
Aer Lingus said the passenger was removed “due to disruptive behaviour on board”.
Elsewhere at the airport several activists sat down on the zebra crossing, blocking traffic going in and out of the passenger drop-off zone until they were finally cleared by police.
It was the fourth day of Extinction Rebellion protests in the capital.
Roads around Parliament and Whitehall remained closed to traffic apart from cyclists amid a heavy police presence, with protesters camped in Trafalgar Square and nearby St James’s Park.