MAG: Improving efficiency and decarbonising aviation

Guest blog from Manchester Airports Group on unlocking efficiencies in UK airspace

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) is the owner and operator of Manchester, London Stansted, and East Midlands airports. The Group is the second largest airport operator in the UK and the
largest group of airports in the country, directly employing around 6,200 people and indirectly around 42,000. Combined, the airports support a GVA of over £8bn.

These airports also play a crucial role in facilitating air freight. The UK’s largest airports for dedicated air freighters are East Midlands and London Stansted, which handle around 26% of the UK’s total air freight volumes.

For MAG, airspace modernisation is a crucial element in decarbonising aviation. Improving the efficiency of routing will enable aircraft to fly more direct routes, climb and descend continuously, and therefore burn less fuel. Reducing the congestion in the skies could also ease the need to ‘hold’ (the fixed circling pattern in which aircraft fly while waiting to land) and make journeys quicker and quieter for local communities.

At Manchester Airport, removing the interactions between individual departure routes and arriving aircraft could allow aircraft to descend from and climb to 7,000ft continuously. Working with neighbouring airspace change sponsors such as Liverpool John Lennon Airport (to the west) and NATS En Route (developing airspace above 7,000ft), MAG hopes to reduce the interactions that currently impact the efficiency of their operations and find solutions to benefit all airspace users and communities on the ground.

MAG hopes to reduce the interactions that currently impact the efficiency of their operations and find solutions to benefit all airspace users and communities on the ground.

The Manchester Airport Future Airspace project was started in 2019 by working with stakeholders to create principles that define the positive objectives the Group wishes to realise through the change. These options will soon be tested, refined from the comprehensive list of options tested with stakeholder input in 2021/2022, in a full public consultation. During the consultation phase, the Group will reach out to all those that want to have a say. The choices available will be communicated in a way that is engaging and transparent, allowing clear feedback with the community’s thoughts and preferences taken on board.

Airspace change has the potential to deliver a positive change for Manchester Airport, its neighbouring communities, airline partners, passengers, the northern economy and the environment.