Scale of Edinburgh Airport runway closures revealed - with resurfacing still a year away
Dozens of flights diverted or delayed during unplanned repairs to surface faults
Emergency repairs to the runway at Scotland’s busiest airport have disrupted thousands of passengers on nearly 100 flights over the last year, it can be revealed.
There were 16 unplanned closures caused by faults at Edinburgh Airport which lasted a total of nearly nine hours, UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) figures obtained by The Scotsman showed. Details of a further two have been confirmed by the airport.
The number of aircraft delayed or diverted to other airports in the year to July was provided by the CAA in response to a freedom of information (FoI) request.
The figures, combined with the other incidents confirmed by the airport, showed a total of 36 passenger flights and two cargo services were diverted and at least 60 flights delayed. The CAA did not have delay details for five of the closures. By contrast, AGS Airports said it was not aware of any such closures at Glasgow over that period, and only one at Aberdeen, for snow clearance.
Edinburgh Airport admitted its runway was “approaching the end of its life” but said work to “fully replace” it would not start until the end of next year. It indicated there could be further closures the interim.
The Scottish Conservatives called for upgrade to be accelerated.
Graham Simpson, its transport spokesperson, who has also been co-chair of the Scottish Parliament’s all-party aviation group, said: “Any delays cause disruption. Airport bosses will be concerned by these figures and should do everything they can to bring forward improvements to the runway.”
The FoI request was prompted by the airport stating in May, after two incidents within a week, that it would not provide a “running commentary and issue an update every time we do work on our own runway”.
In the most disruptive incident, on September 10 last year, 15 flights were diverted and an unknown number delayed in a closure lasting 1 hour 17 minutes. A spokesperson for Edinburgh Airport said: "The runway is approaching the end of its life, with a full replacement operation planned for next year.
“We always prioritise safety and maintain a regular maintenance regime, and we will continue to complete works where and when required.
“Teams work hard to ensure any impact is kept to a minimum, and in these 12 months the runway was available and open 99.9 per cent of the time, with these suspensions making up 0.1 per cent of the year."
The airport said nearly half the closures had been for 20 minutes or less and had not involved any flight diversions.
Chief executive Gordon Dewar told the Edinburgh Airport Consultative Committee two weeks ago that the runway repairs were a “fairly typical pattern of a 15-year-old asset coming to the end of its life”.
He said the “very substantial” resurfacing project would be done at night, with runway closures. A spokesperson for the CAA said: “Safety is a key priority and that’s why all airports, including Edinburgh, periodically close their runways to enable maintenance such as resurfacing.
"As the regulator, we continue to work with Edinburgh Airport, and the whole industry, to maintain the highest safety standards.”
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