Stansted protest cancels flights
07 / 12 / 2008
More than 50 environmentalist protesters disrupted flights at Stansted Airport on 8 December. The climate action group Plane Stupid, said they were “incredibly apologetic” but that they wanted to draw attention to the aviation industry’s carbon dioxide emissions.
Nick Barton, airport owner BAA’s commercial director at Stansted, told BBC Radio 4 he hoped the airport would be able to “recover quite well” from the impact of the protest, but there would be knock-on delays.
He defended airport security and said staff had responded quickly to the protesters but added that BAA would investigate the break-in and where necessary, learn lessons from it.
BAA wants to increase passenger numbers from 25 million to 35 million a year and flights leaving the airport from 241,000 to 264,000 a year.