For Thursdays have become a second runway hotspot - when planes land over Knutsford and Manchester Airport receives the most complaints.

"Thursday was a horrendous day," said Richard Lawson who lives on Parkgate.

"My wife and I were awakened soon after 6am with the noise and it continued for 15 hours with not much of a break," he said.

Mr Lawson, 79, said more than half of the residents on Parkgate were elderly - and many widowed.

"One of the things you look forward to in later years is sitting out in your garden," he said.

"Well, that is just out of the question now.

"And at our age we haven't got a cat in hell's chance of moving. We are left for the rest of our lives with noisy aircraft."

After numerous complaints to the airport, Mr Lawson was told that he might be able to qualify for compensation - but that it could take some time.

"What good is that to me?" he said. "I'll probably be dead in five years."

A resident of Ashworth Park was similarly perturbed by the Thursday air traffic.

"If I was thinking of selling my house I certainly wouldn't bother on a Thursday," she said.

But a spokesman for Manchester Airport said it was simply coincidence that aircraft had landed on the second runway for the past three Thursdays.

"We can't decide when we want to land that way, and I reiterate again that it is the wind direction that dictates how the runway is to be used," she said.

She said she had been told that the wind change was more common at this time of year, which meant the second runway was being used for more landings.

But for one town resident, the noise from the runway has been causing problems on the other side of the world.

Last week Harry Hammond had to terminate two phone calls to his sister in Australia because the noise from aircraft above his home in Oakfield Avenue was so bad.

Mr Hammond was on the phone at about 7am on Monday and Wednesday last week when his sister ended the call, saying: 'I can't hear what you're saying.'

"I complained to Manchester Airport and they said to me 'Geoff Muirhead, the chief executive, lives in Cheshire too,' but I doubt very much that he lives under a flightpath," he said.

On Monday, the airport spokesman said that they had in place some of the most stringent noise monitoring units, and that airlines were fined up to £500 if they went above the acceptable decibel levels.

When asked how many airlines had been fined for breaking the noise levels, the airport said figures were awaiting collation.