London City Airport Threaten Newspaper For Factual Reporting

It is strange, for over a year team FTF have wondered why SOME local papers, particularly some of those which belong to ARCHANT, most particularly the Newham Recorder have a bit of a problem in reporting balanced articles on London City Airport. By behaving in this way, they have constructively denied the communities accurate, and informative information about the effect of London City Airport expanding.

The Newham Recorder have consistently printed biased reports, all bar around two reports which were printed after a rush of complaints to them threatening complaints to the PCC. The Newham Recorder is an embarrassment to the hard working reporters and media sector who take pride and have passion in their work and their ability to deliver facts to the community.

Integrity sadly appears almost absent in some locations. But bullying and intimidation seems to be the name of the day in aviation land.

It seems that the Public Relations Trainee at London City Airport reacts to negative stories in the press with threats, or that is what they did to the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian just a week ago according to the Editors comment in the most recent edition.

Is this how London City Airport normally stops negative, but factually accurate, stories from being printed? You have to wonder. The PR trainee gets on the phone and threatens that if they print the truth they will complain to the Press Complaints Commission? We can only question if this is the normal behaviour of the PR office at the airport, or was the trainee just having a bad day, now that Hill and Knowlton have decamped.

Perhaps we should all lead by example in response to the bullying PR tactics by complaining to the PCC if inaccurate and consistently biased reporting continues in certain newspapers. We won't be complaining about the TRUTH though as that is what we want. But we've plenty of examples for a strong complaint already - about 18 months worth.

At FTF we embrace the TRUTH - telling the truth is not morally wrong, despite what some quarters appear to think if their own behaviour is anything to go by. Truth seems cheap to some when it comes at the expense of making money! Providing inaccurate information and purposely suppressing the facts to your own advantage however is morally wrong.

The freedom of the press is a precious thing - as is integrity. The Wanstead and Woodford Guardian reporter Daniel Binns and his Editor have shown enormous commitment to the community in reporting the factual information which affects their communities, and which the residents have the right to know. London City Airport doesn't appear to want anyone to know about the 9 near misses in the skies above us. It also appears they want to stop the press from printing the TRUTH.

The Wanstead and Woodford Guardian received such support for the report, that upset LCA so much, that a whole page was dedicated to the supportive letters...oh sweet joy! Don't forget to read the Editors comments, as it is an absolute gem! You will find the pages linked here shortly.

Any reporter who would like to inform us, in strict confidence, of a similar experience is welcome to contact us with details.

British Airways Can't Do The Maths

British Airways Press Release (see below)just further misleads the residents of East London and beyond, and those who care about the environment.

Now lets make the article they have released CLEARER to the press and RESIDENTS.

1.British Airways DON'T say that they are YET to receive approval from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly the polluting jets out of London City Airport. The Jets HAVE to meet noise restrictions and we have not seen any notification from the CAA that they have approved the jets operation.

2. BA's Peter Simpson claims the new Embraer is helping them to meet 'environmental objectives'. This is utter NONSENSE when BA are INCREASING flights.

BA claim that the Embraer will improve C02 emissions by UP TO 56%. The trouble is that London City Airport has had a 50% increase in the amount of flights approved by Newham Council - despite the appalling environmental effects on East Londoners.

So lets do the maths:

Apart from the fact that the jets will contribute to excessive noise pollution for 100,000s of residents in the middle of the most densely occupied area of the Country consider:

that a 50% increase in flight expansion out of London City Airport has been approved, this will result in 120,000 flights a year in a RESIDENTIAL AREA, no doubt many of them British Airways' own.

So 50% extra flights of bigger, noisy jets versus UP TO 56% CLAIMED reduction in CO2 emissions...

Hmmm allegedly the maths indicate that this works out at about NO DIFFERENCE in C02 emissions over East London! Isn't it just another case of GREENWASH? For British Airways to make any difference (reduce) in their emissions from London City Airport, they would need to maintain the level of flights they have had in the past at the airport - not increase them, new jets or not.

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British Airways has placed firm orders for a fleet of 11 new generation fuel efficient aircraft that will offer passengers unrivalled levels of space and comfort on board.

The airline's wholly owned subsidiary BA CityFlyer is to take delivery of the first of its new Embraer aircraft, which will fly exclusively from London City Airport, from September 2009. ........

More LIES and SPIN From H&K Hopeful

Our LCA mole kindly scanned in the latest SPIN from the airport not known for it's honesty: London City Airport.

The airport employee featured who regularly explains complaints from residents (from across the boroughs) away with the excuse of: "they are not LCA planes, they are Heathrow planes" has gone public in the 'low fare regional airlines' November publication.

She seems to be in denial about the 2000 + residents who expressed their objection of the airport expanding....in contrast to the 'few' who wrote letters of support in favour. Let's just remind ourselves: just over 300 letters in support of expansion were received by Newham - all but a few of them were from aviation and business.

But still the Hill & Knowlton hopeful kids herself that the airport has a 'great relationship' with the community.' Funny, we sense a real hostility to the airport in the communities which we work with - not because the airport is there, but because of the broken promises and the way the airport treat the community.

We'd like to see her be brave enough to hand deliver her 'runway news' and knock on a few doors, asking residents how they feel about the expansion, increasing noise levels, smell of kerosene, and explain why they have been waiting for noise insulation for 8 years and more. She might like to ask whether there are any ashtma sufferers in the households too...

We're not sure she'd get back to the airport in one piece emotionally. Still, if she is confident enough that the community loves and trusts the airport, and they have had such a good relationship - then no doubt she will be knocking on the doors of those most affected in the next few weeks......yeah right.

You can see the full spin article by the airport uploaded on our website. Go to Latest Headlines