Heathrow gets tougher on night time flights

Courtesy Heathrow

In a bid to crack down on the number of flights disrupting the communities closest to the airport, airlines that operate unscheduled flights within the night time-period will be faced with a bill five times greater than daytime charges. Actions are in response to community feedback on ways to improve noise impacts and complement Heathrow’s wider noise action plan.

This news follows Heathrow’s latest Fly Quiet and Green league table which saw SAS take the top spot following their efforts to improve operational performance and invest in greener and quieter A320neos. The next generation aircraft makes up 7% of flights from Heathrow and are used by eight of the airlines based at the airport including British Airways, SAS, Lufthansa, Air Malta, Iberia and TAP, who all feature in the top 20 of this quarter’s ‘Fly Quiet and Green’ league table. This was introduced in 2013 and encourages cleaner and quieter fleets at Heathrow.

Heathrow Community & Stakeholder Engagement Director, Rob Gray, said: “It is really important that we work with our local communities and airlines to strictly manage aircraft noise at Heathrow. We continue to take vital steps to improve matters, including our new noise charges on all flights that arrive or depart the airport during the night.”

“Since the 1970s, despite a doubling of the number of flights, the population significantly affected by aircraft noise around Heathrow has reduced by around 90%. We believe the number of people impacted by aircraft noise will continue to reduce as we work towards a quieter, better future for Heathrow through the use of noise envelopes and our Noise Action Plan.”