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| Protesters Target Airbus During the morning of Monday 13th August 2007 a group of six protesters from an environmental protest group identified as "Plane Stupid" boarded a barge carrying an A380 wing set from Broughton for assembly in mainland Europe. The full BBC report can be read by clicking on this link. The protest appears to have been an attempt to catch the authorities off-guard by choosing a "surprise" soft-target. Whilst everyone has the right to peaceful protest, targeting the Airbus UK operation only a few month's after it's parent company announced thousands of compulsory redundancies across it's European operation, is quite staggering. The Airbus A380 project has already met with a series of well publicised problems which have resulted in the cancellation of existing orders and options, and probably diminished the number of potential new orders as well. Any action which causes further delays, no matter how short, is at the very least unwelcome. Cancellations of A380 orders do not result in fewer aircraft, but the replacement of Airbus orders with those from Boeing. Choosing to disrupt production at Broughton in order to influence public opinion is mis-guided. This Web Site has always encouraged enthusiasts to adopt a responsible, law abiding, approach to viewing aircraft at Hawarden. There is no reason why this approach cannot be adopted by those who wish to protest their legitimate views. It is already commonplace for anyone near the perimeter fence to be approached by security staff and asked about the reason for their presence. This is wholly correct and we would always encourage individuals to comply with such reasonable requests for information. This is only to be expected given the recent attempted atrocities targeting the UK aviation industry. There has never been a problem reported where enthusiasts have behaved appropriately. In view of what are likely to be enhanced security measures at the airfield following today's incident, we would encourage all enthusiasts to report any suspicious activity to "Crime Stoppers" on 0800 555 111. Should the airfield authorities deem it appropriate to publish a contact telephone number for their own security staff, we would be pleased to publicise it on this site. |
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