RESOLVED – That the minutes of the meeting held on the 07 October 2016 be confirmed and signed as a true record.

Managing Director of Southampton Airport International Limited – Dave Lees, delivered a report which was previously circulated with the Agenda.

Between September and December, passenger numbers were 20.28% higher than in the same period during 2015.Last year was extremely busy with 1.9 million passengers.

The increase can be attributed to several new routes and operators flying from Southampton.  The growth of Southampton Airport was in line with the other Airports in England.

This year’s growth would be in the region of 15%.

Volotea, the airline of small and mid?sized European cities, would continue its operation from Southampton next summer with a new route connecting the city to the Balearic Island of Ibiza

New route was also launched with Eastern Airways to Rodez in Southern France.

Southampton Airport chose Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance as its Charity of the Year 2017. Charity would be partnering with the Airport for the 2017 Airport Run which would be the flagship event taking place this Summer.

Customer Service delivery continued to be at the highest level with the Airport being awarded the first place amongst UK  airports for two years running and in Southampton Airport has was awarded the Airport of the Year 2016 Award by the European Regions Airline Association.

The Noise Action Plan was designed to aid SIAL to minimise impact of air traffic noise on the neighbourhood area.

There were a total of thirteen noise complaints between September and December 2016. All 13 complaints were logged in September and October 2016 and related mostly to aircraft operated by Volotea. Their departure had since improved. Their current fleet of Boeing aircraft would soon be replaced with a new fleet consisting of new Airbus planes. It would be worth mentioning that there were only thirteen complaints during 2016 when there were forty thousand movements. It was a really good ratio. Noise complaints numbers were on the decrease which was welcomed by the Committee. Noise Action Plan would be reviewed in 2018 and work on the review would commence shortly.

This report summarised the statistics of operational activity at Southampton

Airport for the September to December period of 2016 provided by

Southampton Airport in accordance with the Flying Controls Agreement

between the owners of the airport and the Borough Council. The report also

compared the figures with those for the previous year.

The minutes of the most recent meeting of the Technical Working Group were circulated to members with the Agenda, and were noted at the meeting.

Committee was given a report on Laser Incidents which had seen a spike in the number of incidents which occurred in 2017 already.SIAL was working closely with Hampshire Constabulary. Government was strengthening its legislation and offenders faced much higher financial penalties.

Richard Ward – Honorary Secretary to the Chairman, delivered a report on the Department for Transport’s Consultation on the safe use of drones.

DfT published a consultation which had sixty six questions in total.

Drone was a pilotless aircraft which weight could vary from less than a kilogram to several tonnes. Future use of drones was predicted to increase. Drones had several purposes which included: commercial, military and personal uses.

Mandatory registration of drones weighing over 250 gram might be introduced in the future (at the moment only drones over 7kg in weight needed to be officially registered). The Government was also considering whether to test new pilots skills and competency. At the moment there were no formal drone pilot qualifications although there were several pilot competency requirements relevant to professional drone operators.

Anyone using a drone should be made aware of the regulations of the Civil Aviation Authority. More needed to be done to inform drone users of the regulations.

As the use of drones was becoming widespread, Government was looking to introduce legislation in order to prevent the misuse of drones and to protect public safety.

Mandatory registration of drones might be introduced in the future. The Committee expressed the view that at the moment many drones were being sold online and that registration should possibly apply to them as well.

RESOLVED – That Richard Ward would respond to the Department of Transport’s Consultation on the safe use of drones.

The next meeting would be held on the 16 June 2017 at 2:00pm at Southampton International Airport, Spitfire Meeting Room.