Extension
A project by Ellis Brown Architects began in November 1998 to extend the airport and improve the facilities available to passengers. In March 2000 the new extension was opened, providing a new landside catering outlet, arrivals area, baggage hall and departure lounge. The existing part of the airport was refurbished during this time to provide improved check-in facilities and offices, linked to the extension with a new airport entrance. During the extension and renovation period the iconic Three Legs of Man sculpture adorning the airport's façade was also refurbished.
In March 2006 funding for a further extension was granted by Tynwald to increase the number of departure gates, with work due for completion in summer 2007.
In April 2008 Tynwald granted a major runway extension and resurfacing project at the airport. The runway will be extended by 245 m (804 ft) out into the Irish Sea by the construction of a rock-armoured promontory. It is part of a £44m plan which will also include resurfacing of the runway during summer 2008 and the extension programme that will commence in spring 2008 and is due to be completed by December 2009. It has emerged that the actual runway take-off length was underestimated by 160 metres in the £1.5 million feasibility study. Whilst the study originally looked into the aviation marketing implication of runway length Airport management have now denied that the extension is for the use of heavier aircraft in the future, stating that the resurfacing and extension are to comply with the latest International safety standards. There has been a significant overspend on the project due to poor forex management of the Euro denominated components of the costs. It is thought that the Manx Treasury Minister may have been referring to the expense of the runway and the additional £6,515,000 control tower project when he stated in his 2009 Budget speech that the Isle of Man could no longer afford "Rolls Royce" projects.
Read more about this topic: Isle Of Man Airport
Famous quotes containing the word extension:
“‘Tis the perception of the beautiful,
A fine extension of the faculties,
Platonic, universal, wonderful,
Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies,
Without which life would be extremely dull.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid- twentieth century.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)