East Midlands Airport security 'working well'
26.09.06
Managers at Nottingham East Midlands Airport have said security measures are working well despite a weekend protest, the BBC news website reports. The statement comes after campaigners invaded the airport on Sunday and held a four hour protest on an airport taxiway.
Police arrested 24 demonstrators from environmental campaign group Plane Stupid after they got just 300 yards away from a runway on Sunday. The group of environmental campaigners used cutters to gain access through a fence.
Campaigner Chris Horner said getting so close to the runway was a simple process. 'About 25 climate camp protesters went through and over the fence and onto the taxi way at East Midlands Airport ... and it was all pretty easy,' he told the BBC.
However, the airport's managing director, Penny Coates, said she was 'satisfied emergency procedures had worked well'. She said that the airport, and the police, were happy with the way the security breach had been handled.
'They [the protesters] were over half a mile away from the terminal and they were intercepted by a huge amount of resources so they wouldn't have got any further and I think the security measures worked very well,' she said.
Plane Stupid said it was protesting over claims that the number of short-haul flights from the airport was affecting climate change. Six outbound flights were delayed by the protest.
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