Emas would propel Guernsey into a whole new league of squandering public money

I wondered for a moment whether I had really made such a mistake: can Jersey Airport really accommodate regular flights by large jets when its runway is inferior to Guernsey’s, ostensibly with the load-bearing strength of Andrex toilet roll?

Fear not, dear reader. After re-checking the facts, I can confidently renew my assurances that the Emas arrestor bed technology would be waste of money. No matter how you try to extend the runway at Guernsey Airport, its load-bearing strength will remain inadequate for larger jets.

The runway is soft, yet neither strong nor very long.

So how has Barry Cash gotten this so wrong? It’s a schoolboy error on his part. According to the UK Aeronautical Information Publication, Jersey’s runway has a load-bearing strength some 44% greater than Guernsey’s. (Jersey’s

runway has a published classification of 52, whereas Guernsey is at 36.) In haste to put forward a counter-argument, Mr Cash seems to have seized upon a lower categorisation for Jersey that relates only to the runway emergency stop-ways. This is not taken into account for normal operations as you certainly don’t plan to overrun the runway on landing.

Jersey can thus facilitate multiple daily flights by larger jets because its runway has the strength to support those aircraft. Even with an extended length, Guernsey could not. A multi-million pound investment in Emas will not change that.

And putting the Emas system only on one end of any runway will still result in a short landing distance available in that direction for pilots, just as today.

Mr Cash cites Emas as a ‘game changer’ for Guernsey. On that point, we may be able to find rare agreement. It would propel Guernsey into a whole new league of squandering public money on a vanity project: a game changer indeed.

JONATHAN HINKLES

Adviser to airlines and airports with 30 years’ industry experience