Happy New Year!

Following a busy 2016 – see below – ACL would like to wish all of its customers a very prosperous and fruitful 2017.

2016 saw ACL add two new airports to its portfolio: Luxembourg Findel Airport, a Level 2 Schedules Facilitated airport and Dunedin Airport, a Level 1 Data Collection airport in New Zealand – all the relevant information for both airports is available on the ACL website.

In addition to the new airports, ACL saw significant growth across many of our existing airports, a trend that has continued into Summer 17, including double digit growth at Birmingham (14%), Manchester (16%) and Stansted (10%)  airports. Increased demand is resulting in challenges to the coordination parameters as well as the interpretation of the EU Slot Regulations and night noise regimes. ACL continues to work with airport customers to deliver additional capacity whilst maintaining its integrity in applying the Slot Regulation.

Birmingham Airport has been designated Level 3 from Summer 2017. ACL is now working with the airport to implement a Coordination Committee as required by the EU Slot Regulation.

Many will be aware of the incident at Dubai International in August. ACL played a pivotal role in the capacity reduction required due to the loss of one of the runways. The main task was to work closely communicating with all operators to ensure cancellations were made as per published NOTAMS with the view of trying to minimise the period of disruption and delay. ACL operated extended hours to support all stakeholders until business returned to normal when both runways were fully functional. Following the incident, ACL has been working with the airport to develop best practice for capacity reductions based on the lessons learnt. ACL was recognised following the event for its contribution.

Following the Brexit vote in July no more details of how the Government plans to approach Brexit have become available. However, an industry engagement process has commenced as Government seeks to better understand the issues it will need to address as a new relationship with Europe and the rest of the world is shaped.  ACL will continue to meet regularly with the DfT and will communicate any Brexit specific developments that may impact its customers.

Managing Director Chris Bosworth continues to serve as Board Member on European Airport Coordinators Association (EUACA) and  is also involved in a number of regulatory affairs and forward looking projects.  Head of Coordination Richard Cann is part of a joint ACI, IATA and WWACG Working Group looking at capacity declarations best practice. ACL Coordination managers made significant contributions to the recently published EUACA Recommended Practice for handling Periods of Reduced Capacity.

In the past year, ACL has welcomed the following new staff members:

Gar Man (Coordinator)
Shabaz Bhatti (Coordinator)
James de Groot (Coordinator)
Zoheb Khan (Coordinator)
Zachary Bryant (Coordinator)
Nereida Perdomo (Coordinator)

The annual customer Airport/Airline surveys were undertaken and the results were very positive with the response rate being the largest that we have received to date.  The Airport survey returned an overall score of 6.2 out of 7, which is the highest that ACL has ever achieved.  The airline scores were consistent with the previous year remaining at 6.1 out of 7.   ACL uses the survey as one of a number of mechanisms to temperature check customer feedback.  As well as the scores there are free text boxes and ACL goes through these in detail to review and where appropriate improve what we do.  The surveys will be sent again in the coming months and we would ask all customers to respond and let us know how we are doing.

In October 16, ACL launched a new website which uses latest technology.  The new website is fully mobile compliant, meaning that visitors can display the site properly using mobile and tablets as well as computers/laptops.  All documentation is available in the Airport Info section of the website or by using the search facility on the right hand side.  You can filter by country, airport or document type.

W16 Seasonal Reports have been published for all Level 3 airports and are available for download.

So with a number of exciting challenges coming our way in 2017 everyone at ACL would like to wish you a very happy new year for 2017, during which we look forward to continuing to work with you in ever more positive and constructive ways.

Best Regards

From all at ACL.