Newquay airport chaos (From Falmouth Packet)

Newquay airport chaos

5:26pm Sunday 30th November 2008 in Truro By Stephen Ivall

Passengers hit by the temporary closure of Newquay Airport may get compensation.

Thousands of passengers may having to travel to and from other south west airports because of the closure.

The closure is to allow owners Cornwall County Council, to carry out work on the air traffic control system.

The council said it would consider "legitimate" compensation claims.

The council is to fund free shuttle buses to take passengers to and from the other airports handling rescheduled flights.

Those include Plymouth Airport and Lands End Airport.

Cornwall county council is taking over air traffic operations from the RAF, which is pulling out of the adjacent RAF St Mawgan airbase.

But commercial flights have had to be cancelled after work needed to secure a licence from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was not carried out in time.

It us hoped the airport will be up and running again on December 19 but there are reall fears the closure will seriously damage Cornwall's businesses and tourist industry.