Fog misery ramps up at Jersey Airport

Wednesday 27 July 2016

We've all enjoyed a few days in the sun, but only last month it was a different story as Jersey was blanketed by fog.

At this time of year in what passes for our mid-summer, thoughts may not be directed towards fog misery at Jersey Airport, but only a few weeks ago it caused travel chaos for hundreds of air passengers.

And fog disruption is getting worse, as our figures show. In 2015, between January and June, there was 51 hours lost due to fog at the airport, covering a total of 26 days. 

But for the corresponding months this year there was 114 hours of fog disruption, over 35 days. 

In percentage terms, fog caused disruption to 2% of flights in that six-month period in 2015, but 4.5% this year. That’s a lot of cancelled and delayed flights and what it all spells is severe and regular disruption for passengers - and it is clearly, even through the fog, getting even more frustrating for travellers. 

Les Smallwood, senior air traffic control officer at Jersey Airport said the rise is “significant” and an answer may be many years and several millions of pounds away in the future.

He said: “There is no doubt these are significant increases. Fog disruption has more than doubled in a year and that is a genuine concern. Under the present technological limitations, there is very little we can do to improve the situation.”

Only last month the fog caused widespread problems for organisers of the Folklore Festival, with several bands unable to land at the airport and others heavily delayed.

Airport bosses are about to begin a feasibility study, which will take around six months to a year to complete, into ways of improving matters. 

He said: “At the moment an aircraft, in order to land from over the island, requires visibility of 550 metres. There are various methods which could be introduced to bring that down to around 300 metres which is a big improvement from our present day limitations. The principal improvement could come by way of satellite-based systems such as G-BAS (Ground Based Augmentation System) which pings a signal from the ground to the aircraft and back again. That method could be used as a possibility to get a better minimum for landing. But it is around three years before that technology will be available and aircraft fleets will also have to be re-equipped. 

“Not many aircraft have G-BAS now, but I think it is safe to assume that as fleets are re-designed and improved, that will increasingly be the case. 

“G-BAS would cost us £2.3million to implement, but then we would also have to make changes to things like lighting on the runway in order for it to be effective and that would cost more money.  

“We are about to commence a feasibility study to see how realistic various changes could be made and to see what is possible. That’s going to take between six to 12 months and then we should have a clearer idea of where we stand. We obviously want to keep delays and disruption to a minimum so it is a study which we will be looking at very closely when completed.”