Council makes official complaint to Manchester Airport

We’ve had a lot of residents, especially in the north of the parish, complain about recent flights of large planes over their houses. Whilst we know that Manchester Airport have had technical problems for 10 days from 10th to the 19th of October, our compliant actually extends beyond those dates because we can’t see any reasonable excuse for the flights.

The Parish Council is concerned that Manchester Airport is “testing the waters” for their upcoming “Future Airspace” project by sending planes over our parish and waiting for complaints. This concern is shared by neighbouring parish councils, including Snelson and Chelford who have also registered complaints.

The letter has been sent to the Managing Director, Karen Smart.

We would in the meantime encourage any residents who have been disturbed by these flights to contact the airport directly using the following link https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/community/living-near-the-airport/noise-disturbance-and-webtrak/

Dear Ms Smart,

As you’re obviously aware the recent failure of the navigational aids has forced many of your planes to fly in non-standard departures. 

Whilst the recent crescendo of large planes over our parish is easily explained by this failure, this letter concerns the preceding 5-6 weeks, during which a constant and steady stream of large aircraft also flew over our parish on a daily basis for no apparent reason.

Throughout September a constant flow of large planes used the LIS flightpaths. Most did so during periods of calm and clear skies. The planes also came over at a time when other aircraft preceding or proceeding the errant one, flew on an expected flightpath, which if caused by navigational problems, were very specific and intermittent.

Whilst we would like an explanation for these NSDs, we primarily wish to register a complaint on behalf of the residents in our parish who were affected by the noise and disturbance these planes caused during this period.