Forum Topic

No summer 2009 runway alternation

A note from community relations at Heathrow hasn't pleased me :".....I should make you aware that from end of April to early September  we arehaving to suspend night time alternation due to works taking place on thesouthern runway.  This means that at night (whether we are on easterly orwesterly operations) the northern runway will be used for all landings fromMonday night (after 11pm) to Saturday morning (until 6am) from 27 April –10 September 2009.  On Saturday and Sunday night, the majority of arrivalswill use the southern runway so that routine maintenance work can becarried out to the northern runway.For those people under the approach path to the northern runway (I am notsure how you are affected by arrivals), this will potentially be verydisruptive over the summertime.  Doing the work during the better weathermeans we are able to keep the project to the minimum amount of time aspossible.  I apologise in advance for any inconvenience this causes you.More information is available from our noise team on 0800 344844 "

Tim Henderson ● 6429d1 Comments

I agree that this is unwelcome, but, to be fair, your topic heading is somewhat misleading.  What has been announced, as you say in the text, is that the northern runway will be used for all night-time landings from Monday evening to Saturday morning.  In practice that means that the average of 16 early morning landings between 04:00 and 06:00 will be on the northern runway on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings, and on the southern runway on Sunday and Monday mornings.  This is instead of the normal pattern for night flights of alternating fortnights on each runway.If the wind directions during the summer are typical, it would mean night flights over Brentford for 53 nights during the 20-week period instead of the usual 37 nights.

Richard Jennings ● 6429d