Largest city in Europe without an airport.

[KenH]

Because the council refused to pay for a ground approach radar which the only airline at the time (kvm?) said was a requirement.

Subsequent to that the airline pulled out and no others ever moved in.

 

I would echo RedRobbo in referring people to the existing thread on the airport which covers many points such as this one. The council never had anything to do with the airport and wouldn't have been asked to provide RADAR nor would they be expected to provide it. I do, however, hold the council responsible for not properly fighting the closure.

[chrisp7091]

I was really up for the airport until I realised what it might mean for us in terms of air traffic over our home. We seemed to be on the glide path for planes lining up to land, so on a purely selfish note, I'm pleased the airport is shutting.

 

I know that's not very community spirited of me me - but there you are.

[KenH]

I was really up for the airport until I realised what it might mean for us in terms of air traffic over our home. We seemed to be on the glide path for planes lining up to land, so on a purely selfish note, I'm pleased the airport is shutting.

 

I know that's not very community spirited of me me - but there you are.

 

Assuming your location is Stannington, then your most certainly aren't on any glide path, unless it is for Manchester! The normal wind direction is westerley so the people who are on the glide path are those in catcliffe. If the winds are easterly then it would be the Darnall area.

[MichaelJP]

A real shame it couldn't have been kept open, even as a general aviation facility for helicopter, charter and leisure use. Plenty of cities smaller than Sheffield have a small airport like this e.g. Leicester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Oxford, and many, many more.

 

Sheffield's general aviation facility will now will be Netherthorpe which is basically just a grass field with numbers painted on it.

 

It's a wider issue though, not just to do with aviation, the failure to make a success of the city airport is a massive blow to Sheffield's image and prestige. Business friends of mine who are looking to start up companies rarely even think of Sheffield, and this is just one more reason why the city has such an appallingly low profile.

[KenH]

A real shame it couldn't have been kept open, even as a general aviation facility for helicopter, charter and leisure use. Plenty of cities smaller than Sheffield have a small airport like this e.g. Leicester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Oxford, and many, many more.

 

Sheffield's general aviation facility will now will be Netherthorpe which is basically just a grass field with numbers painted on it.

 

It's a wider issue though, not just to do with aviation, the failure to make a success of the city airport is a massive blow to Sheffield's image and prestige. Business friends of mine who are looking to start up companies rarely even think of Sheffield, and this is just one more reason why the city has such an appallingly low profile.

 

Nottingham has just been sold for a substantial sum to a company who will keep it open rather then to developers who wanted to build on the site.

 

Netherthorpe is the shortest licenced runway in the UK and, as such, is unsuitable for the vast majority of aircraft. It isn't fit for the people who want to visit the area becuase, even those in very small aircraft, are disuaded from landing unless they know the airfield very well.

 

Doncaster Finnigley is a fine new, modern, airport but it is very much a Doncaster or South Yorkshire airport. My view is that any inward investment which is linked to having Finningley close by will probably not come to Sheffield itself.

[Glennis]

I am not quite sure what I think about the airport closing. Its yet another waste of good money, which we seem to have seen a lot of in recent years.

 

On the other hand, I am glad that aircraft will not be flying over my home and city, with the subsequent noise and pollution .. and of course the danger.

[pb1977]

I, too, used to think the short runway was the reason the airport wasn't much use - but this is not true. It's the same length as London City airport, which manages to handle 2 million passengers a year despite having Heathrow and Gatwick nearby taking care of all the long-haul stuff.

 

So why didn't it work in Sheffield? Why didn't we ever get Easyjet flights to Luton, or some such?

 

Mostly because we've got Manchester, Leeds/Bradford, and East Midlands which are all nearer to Sheffield than most "city airports" in the world are to the cities they belong to.

 

Sheffields runways at just under 4000ft that is 1000ft shorter than the runway at London City, so runway lenght must have played some part in the airport not really takeing off. The likes of Ryanair & Easyjet use aircraft that need more than 4000ft of runway.

 

London City works because of its location within London, very close to the financial districts of Canary Wharf & the Square Mile. Imagine your some executive sat in your office in Canary Wharf and you need to fly out to Geneva,Paris,Frankfurt or Amsterdam do you slog it all the way over to Heathrow or do you nip down the road to London City.

[KenH]

Sheffields runways at just under 4000ft that is 1000ft shorter than the runway at London City, so runway lenght must have played some part in the airport not really takeing off. The likes of Ryanair & Easyjet use aircraft that need more than 4000ft of runway.

 

London City works because of its location within London, very close to the financial districts of Canary Wharf & the Square Mile. Imagine your some executive sat in your office in Canary Wharf and you need to fly out to Geneva,Paris,Frankfurt or Amsterdam do you slog it all the way over to Heathrow or do you nip down the road to London City.

 

I can't do feet (we do runways in Metres in Europe), but here are the official lengths:-

 

Sheffield - 1211 M

London - 1508 M

 

However, I believe that the two were the same lenth when built and that London had an extension whereas Sheffield was recently shortened (they knocked down the low lamposts and put up high ones on the approach).

 

The two airports can't be reasonably compared because you can't compare London and Sheffield either. I would argue that we need things that make us better and different to other cities and not destroy what we have.

[BasilRathbon]

If we're taking global warming seriously we should be delighted that Sheffield has ceased to have an airport.

[KenH]

If we're taking global warming seriously we should be delighted that Sheffield has ceased to have an airport.

 

If we take global warmin seriously then we should be appalled that Sheffield has lost its airport so that people will have to travel further in noisy, poluting cars to get the flights they would have taken anyway.