07 - Description of the airport location and airspace

Description of the airport location and airspace

Edinburgh Airport covers 367 hectares and its current layout and land use are shown in Figure 1. It is bounded to the north by the River Almond, to the south by the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland land and to the east by the Edinburgh to Fife rail line.

The existing terminal building and main runway were developed in 1977 replacing the Turnhouse facilities which had been in place since before the Second World War. The facilities at Turnhouse now house our expanding cargo operation, which is Scotland’s small parcels hub and a key facility supporting Scottish businesses and the economy.

The core developed area is around the terminal building. Other developed areas comprise the business aviation terminal and maintenance area adjacent to the Gogar Burn and the western ancillary area at Almond Road. The airport grew from less than 1 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 1977 to 1.85 mppa at privatisation in 1987. Since then, by intensively developing the land within our boundaries to provide all the facilities required to support growth, in 2017, the airport handled 13.4 mppa.

Airfield development

The Airfield Development Programme began in October 2016 and has seven distinct projects associated with it. The programme looked to deliver incremental capacity for night stopping aircraft and code E aircraft, upgrade our taxi lanes and install fixed electrical ground power. The project represents a substantial investment in the future of Edinburgh Airport and in our key asset, the airfield.

Terminal expansion project
As part of continued investment in the airport infrastructure and long-term planning, a £80 million investment plan includes a new extension to help the airport handle record passenger numbers. The new three-story extension will provide an additional six gates, seating areas, extended immigration, customs and international reclaim facilities, a bigger and improved baggage hall as well as more retail space. The building is due to be completed by Summer 2018 and will provide first class infrastructure for passengers, with 16.5 mppa expected to pass through the terminal by 2021.

Second runway
The airport’s secondary runway (R12/30), is rarely used and is short by modern airport standards. It has no instrument landing equipment and this restricts the use of this runway to smaller aircraft in periods of good visibility. Plans have been announced to close the runway to develop a business hub on a site to the south east of the existing terminal building.

The Crosswinds project would expand towards the Gogar roundabout and could include things like offices, industrial buildings and residential property. It is a prime commercial development opportunity due to the connectivity offered by the airport and will support high-quality sustainable jobs, support improved productivity and deliver for airport and commercial developments.

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Flight profiles

Naturally, passenger demand is greater in the summer months as leisure demand increases, with peaks in July and August during school holidays. Daily demand profiles show that weekdays are busier on average in the peak months than weekends. This is due to the combination of business and leisure demand during the week and reduced business traffic at weekends.

Edinburgh is an overnight base for a large number of aircraft – this results in a peak departing period at the beginning of each day and a peak arriving period at the end of the day. Other busy periods during the day reflect the in-bound and out-bound patterns created by a busy short-haul, domestic route network.

The monthly profile of passenger air transport movements shows that available capacity is relatively consistent throughout the year. This demonstrates that airlines operating from Edinburgh are generally running year-round businesses with fixed frequencies. Any slight fluctuations are caused by charter operations.

Current arrival and departure flight paths

Figure 2 below shows the traffic patterns over a two-week period including periods when both Runways 24 and 06 are in use, and shows the density and spread of the current flight paths. The current declared capacity for flight movements is 42 movements per hour. More information on our current flight paths is available in Appendix 1 – Procedure for arriving and departing aircraft.

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Departures
Departing aircraft are required to remain within the Noise Preferential Routes (NPR) until an altitude of 3,000ft or 4,000ft has been achieved – depending on the Standard Instrument Departure (SID) route that they are using. The SID routes end at 6,000ft after which they will be vectored by Air Traffic Control directly. The SID that an aircraft flies will depend on a number of factors including the destination of the aircraft and other traffic in the sky at the time.

Arrivals
The route taken may vary from aircraft to aircraft as Air Traffic Control integrates aircraft approaching from different directions or flying at varying speeds. It will also be dependent on other factors such as the weather and surrounding air traffic. The aim will always be to achieve a stable approach within the controlled airspace at a speed and height corresponding with the aircraft’s distance from touchdown. Aircraft maintain as high an altitude as possible and adopt a continuous descent approach profile, when appropriate.

With a continuous descent approach (CDA) an aircraft descends towards an airport in a gradual, continuous approach with the engine power cut back. By flying higher for longer and eliminating the need for the extra thrust required for the periods of level flight between steps of descent, CDAs result in reduced fuel burn and emissions and also mean less noise exposure for communities under the arrivals flight path. This type of procedure can result in noise reductions of up to 5 dB. The use of CDAs is promoted in the AIP. We have provided a link to the website where this can be viewed in Appendix E.

Air quality
There are interdependencies between emissions of local air pollutants (surface traffic) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from aircraft engines which affect aircraft noise management. The challenge for the aviation industry is to manage and balance these issues. We periodically carry out air quality surveys, the objectives of these surveys are to assess the impact on air quality due to emissions from activity at Edinburgh Airport, such as road traffic and aircraft.

The main pollutant of concern is nitrogen dioxide (NO2). NO2 is formed by nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from surface traffic, aircraft and airport operations.

We commissioned Ricardo-AEA to undertake a six-month air quality survey investigating nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations at Edinburgh Airport during 2013-2014. The survey commenced from mid-July 2013 and continued into February 2014. This survey followed on from similar studies carried out during 1999, 2003-2004, 2006-2007 and 2010-2011.

A further air quality survey is currently being carried out and will run December 2017 – May 2018, once the Air Quality report is finalised it will be published on our website.

There is a range of legislation which seeks to manage and reduce the emissions of air pollutants at source. For example, emissions from aircraft are regulated in the UK by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the CAA.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) sets international standards for smoke and certain gaseous pollutants for newly-produced large jet engines; it also restricts the venting of raw fuels. The latest standards came into effect in 2013 and apply to engine types certified after this date.

In addition to reducing aircraft emissions, all aircraft vehicles are required to meet certain standards to limit vehicle exhaust emissions standards.

A large number of electric vehicles are already used airside, primarily by handling agents, in order to transport luggage to and from the aircraft.

We actively encourage our passengers to make full use of public transport; connectivity to the airport has never been easier. We’ve worked with partners to install ticket machines in our terminal for the various modes of public transport – of which there are many.

The Edinburgh tram stop is very close to the terminal building. We also have the nearby and new Edinburgh Gateway train station with direct links to Edinburgh, Fife and other areas of Scotland. Bus routes are also expanding – the Airlink 100, Skylink 200 and Livingston Route 21A all offer incremental choice to car and taxi options.

Move towards RNAV technology

The UK Government’s Future of Airspace Strategy requires all airports within the UK to use an area navigation (RNAV) system. This concentrates flight paths in a narrower and more precise track compared to the current flight paths which are typically dispersed. The existing flight paths used by aircraft (termed ‘conventional’ flight paths) rely on the 1950s technology of groundbased radio beacons. Edinburgh Airport along with other UK airports must move towards the use of this technology, and will do so within the term of the 2018-2023 NAP. As part of our Air Space Change programme (ACP), we proposed the introduction of RNAV routes; aircraft would follow the routes more consistently than they do today.