Mr. Gary McLean:

As the Deputy knows, when our runway opened in August 2022, we intentionally had a phased ramping up of the operations. That was because it was in effect a whole redesign not just of the airspace but how we operate our airport. We had a whole recertification of that. As I said, safety was the number one priority in all that. In the early days, we ramped up our hours. On a gradual basis, we looked at concepts of operations that drove a new operation but with safety as the main priority. As we all, including all our users, became more familiar with that we started to introduce improvements, in particular, improving departure intervals and reducing them between flights.

One of the current challenges is that the switchover on the north runway becomes available at 7 a.m., as the Deputy is probably aware, which is right in the middle of our first wave. The last aircraft before 7 a.m. departs from the southern runway and the next one after 7 a.m. departs from the northern runway, as per the current planning conditions. A lot of work was done to ensure that transition happened smoothly, and that we managed it, in conjunction with AirNav and our other stakeholders.

As we have progressed, we have seen improvements in the airfield's overall efficiency. In the year to date, our on-time performance is significantly improved on that of previous years. We have a working group that meets weekly or more regularly as required and looks purely at the busy first wave operation. That group comprises us, AirNav as our key partner in managing air traffic as well as aircraft off the runway, and other stakeholders. Everyone is focused on how well the airport operates. Work has also been done with EUROCONTROL as regards aircraft that might get slots. We now have a desk at EUROCONTROL that we can ring when there is congestion at the airport so that we can try to improve the slots that aircraft can have. It is not always possible, but we engage on that.

Through our teams and APOC, our operational centre, and in conjunction with our stakeholders, we examine what is coming at us and how we can improve the situation. As the Senator can imagine, we are getting more efficiency off the north runway with departure after departure and arrivals coming in on a separate runway than we would with a mixed mode of arrivals and departures, with greater segregation between them. There have been many improvements.