New £2m lighting system criticised after fog delays
06.11.07
Thousands of passengers were delayed at Liverpool Airport on Sunday after heavy fog led to cancellations (as reported yesterday). However, the Liverpool Echo reports that the problems were particularly embarrassing for the airport, because they came less than a week after it had launched a new £2m runway lighting system that was supposed to keep planes flying during foggy weather.
Liverpool Airport is in an area that regularly suffers from fog, and this has affected flights in the past. On Sunday 27 flights were cancelled, with 13 others subject to long delays. Some passengers waited 10 hours at the hub for alternative flights.
However, the disruption came just days after the airport launched its new runway lighting system to reduce the number of cancelled flights. New lighting for the runway and taxiway, which took 6 months to install, was supposed to allow aircraft to taxi, take-off and land in extremely low levels of visibility that previously would have resulted in cancelled flights.
During the launch last Monday, airport director Andy Gower said: 'As winter draws nearer and the weather can get poorer, this upgrade to the runway lighting system will help ensure even fewer flights will be affected by any bad weather.'
Yesterday Liverpool Airport spokesman Robin Tudor told the newspaper the lighting system had 'paid dividends' on Sunday and that things would have been much worse had it not been installed. He said: 'The fog was so thick that it didn't matter how good a system of lighting we had.'
'But as soon as it started to lift and there was an improvement in the visibility, the lighting worked. It really has paid dividends and got things moving much quicker than would have otherwise been possible.'
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