Aircraft noise continues to be an issue for many of my constituents.  It has been the subject of continuous pressure from CAGNE (www.cagne.org) and many residents and is a regular point of contention between Gatwick and local MPs.

Given this, I wanted to make you aware that Gatwick has established a new flight monitoring system, Webtrak: https://webtrak.emsbk.com/lgw2. It recognises your location and shows aircraft movements and ambient noise in your vicinity. It is considered to be presenting data in ‘real time’ but owing to the huge amount of data involved, there is typically a 30 minute lag. The data is more personalised than has been the case previously; selecting a flight will show you how far it is from you and opting to ‘report the aircraft’ will bring up the complaints form. Flights circled in orange are violating the airspace and in these circumstances, a report is sent immediately to the airline.

Gatwick are producing a league of airlines ordered in terms of their compliance with flight paths. They have also re-introduced an automated noise complaints phoneline: 01293 311568.  

I am, as ever, very keen to hear comments about how this new system works in practice.

Photo Captions: Webtrak in action.