The home of the Farnborough air show for the past 60 years – and an airfield for a century – Europe’s leading all-business airport is fighting to grow into its under-utilised infrastructure, according to its owner and operator, TAG.
Restricted to 28,000 movements a year (including, from next year, a maximum of 5,000 during weekends and bank holidays) the airport is now operating at maximum capacity and the preliminary results of a recent survey of local people will be published later this year in the form of a draft master plan.
TAG Farnborough’s CEO Brandon O’Reilly explains that the airport “provides a vital gateway for prominent business decision makers travelling to and from the UK. There is a high level of unsatisfied demand for business aviation in the south east of England…and this must be met in order to help maintain the UK economy’s competitiveness.
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“Between May 2007 and May 2008 we saw a 60% increase in airliner-size business jets (BBJs and A320s) alone, although we will never have any form of scheduled flights where seats are sold separately,” he says.
The airport is one of the largest employers in the area, with around 2,840 jobs by 2009, It also contributes to the local economy and the biennial airshow itself chipped in with more than £17-million in 2006. According to O’Reilly, the air show site will be continue to develop over the coming years. The first manifestation of this is the new Aviator hotel that opens for paying business just after the air show ends!
With 138 bedrooms and 31 suites, the new hotel looks set to become a popular addition to the airport’s facilities and those arriving by air are bound to notice that it has been designed in the shape of an aircraft twin-bladed propeller, reflecting Farnborough’s place in the annals of British aviation history.
In an attempt to appease local residents who feel strongly about noise levels created by departing aircraft, the airport has also recently introduced what it calls the ‘Farnborough quiet flying programme’, designed to reflect concerns about noise pollution from local towns and villages including Farnborough itself to the east and the town of Fleet and its suburb village Church Crookham to the west.
As it sits outside ‘controlled airspace’, it’s not possible to introduce standard instrument departures. However, TAG Aviation’s chief pilot, in conjunction with representatives from the local communities and companies, have created the programme that since 8 May this year has asked all departing pilots to turn onto specific headings to avoid major centres of population. “So far, so good” says O’Reilly, “and the initial feedback has all been positive.”
TAG Farnborough is shortly to double its existing 120,000sq ft of hangarage to cope with expected future demand. Three new ‘mirror image’ hangar bays will be built, enabling more of the 52 aircraft currently based at the airfield – a figure that has more than doubled over the past year - to be kept under cover and to undergo maintenance.
Part of one of these new hangars is likely to become the ‘showroom’ for HondaJet in northern Europe after the Japanese company announced at Geneva’s EBACE show that it is to establish a new European network of three HondaJet-exclusive sales and service centres, modelled on the parent company’s automotive experience.
Source: Flight Daily News
