London Olympics Private Jet Flights Less Than Anticipated

Posted by: Prince Jets  Jun 18, 2014 01:06 PM

Airports in and near London, England such as Farnborough and Oxford are reporting that the volume of private jet charter flights has not surged as much as anticipated for the Olympics. London Heathrow, which is Europe’s top business jet hub, banned private plane flights for the duration of the games.

Certain very popular Olympic events, such as the opening ceremonies and the mens 100 meter final did lead to traffic surges as VIP’s and celebrities like Madonna flew in. These also brought complications as gates became crowded, putting more pressure on turnaround times.

While Britain’s Civil Aviation authority anticipated up to 5,000 extra private aviation flights in southern England during the 2 weeks of Olympics action, the real increase looks to be quite a bit less than that. Instead of being up 33% from 2011 its estimated that the increase has only been about 20%.

Flights over London were totally restricted to police, armed forces, emergency services and an Olympic broadcast helicopter. Anyone else flying into the airspace would trigger prosecution and even “interception by armed military aircraft,” according to the CAA. The skies of London were patrolled by Royal Air Force Typhoon jet and Puma helicopters along with 6 surface-to-air missile batteries.

The problem was perhaps even worse for Helicopter operators as the Olypics saw many heliports closed and even Battersea, London’s premier heliport, was in operation only after authorities were persuaded that it was not a security threat. RotorMotion, a helicopter operator out of Redhill, 6 minutes by air from Battersea, anticipated up to a dozen extra booking but had only seen 3. During other athletic events RotorMotion says it usually operates “flat out” to keep up with demand.

But with no dedicated Olympic helipad and the unusual requirement for flight plans to be submitted 4 hours before every flight along with photo proof of identity for everyone on board. This is a big contrast to the usual rules that allow them to use visual flight rules and go where they want to, when they want to.

In the end the Olympics did boost traffic at Battersea and elsewhere, it just wasn’t as much as anticipated.

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