Noise kit row creates deafening roar

Date: 11/03/1999

By Peter Chapman

IN THE morning rush hour, the traffic on the M4 motorway just west of London is almost bumper to bumper.

Look into the air above the carriageway and the congestion appears just as bad as scores of passenger and cargo planes queuing on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport finally get permission from air traffic control to take off. The jets thunder down the runway and head off at full throttle over the commuter suburbs to the south west of the British capital.

Residents living around Europe's busiest airport and its rivals such as Amsterdam and Frankfurt have been complaining about the noise these aircarft generate for years.

They have campaigned for an end to the relentless building of new runways and for the introduction of controls on early morning take-offs and landings in a desperate attempt to preserve what silence they still enjoy.

At the same time, airports have been urging policy makers to shift the blame onto airlines - forcing the latter to use quieter aircraft while still allowing the former to expand.

The EU has responded by agreeing legislation which would place strict controls on the noisiest aircraft. The move is aimed at implementing the latest rules agreed by industry itself at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the United Nations body which regulates the sector by consensus.

But in a controversial add-on to the ICAO rules, the Union effectively agreed to ban old planes such as Boeing 727s and DC8s even if they were fitted with special 'hush-kit' equipment designed to make their engines quieter. This, the EU argues, is because these planes are still too noisy, even if they comply with the ICAO's 'stage three' requirements.

Under the rules agreed by Union governments, planes fitted with these mufflers would not be allowed to fly in the EU after 1 April 2002 unless they were operating within the Union before April this year, when the new regulations are due to enter into force.

Most EU-based planes, including all the Airbus aircraft built in Europe, already meet these requirements. But many US planes, particularly those run by parcel cargo firms such as Federal Express, are fitted with hush kits.

Not surprisingly, this has prompted furious complaints from the US that

the draft regulation discriminates against their companies, and the EU has been forced to put the planned restrictions on hold while diplomats attempt to broker a compromise deal to avert another transatlantic trade war.

The cynics have been quick to pounce. They claim that the draft rules could speed up the demand for new aircraft and, with Airbus enjoying a bumper year, this would boost its sales further at the expense of rivals.

Airbus strongly denies this accusation. “It is not true to say this would just help Airbus. Boeing make aircraft which comply,” said a company spokeswoman.

In an effort to ward off the cynics, Airbus managing director Näel Forgeard wrote to his counterpart at Fed Ex claiming his firm had not helped the European Commission to develop its proposals. Other industry sources also reject the argument that the rules will help Airbus.

But this has done nothing to dampen American anger. US engine giant Pratt and Whitney, whose annual sales topped €7.2 billion last year, is among those at the forefront of the campaign against the move, which would outlaw its popular JT8D engine.

Pratt & Whitney does not make the hush kits, but €45-million worth of business a year fitting and servicing hush-kit fitted engines would be hit hard by the new regulations. It also rejects EU claims that hush-kitted aircraft are noisier than those fitted with 'quieter' engines. “Take a 727 freighter fitted with a hush-kitted JT8D and an Airbus A300 fitted with a General Electric CF6, and I tell you the Airbus will be noisier,” says Pratt and Whitney's executive vice-president Bob Leduc.

However, Leduc, the company's number two, rejects claims that airlines based in the US will move en masse to new Airbuses to meet the new EU regulations. “It is going to have the opposite effect. Airlines in the US will be reluctant to take the write off [of the old planes] on their balance sheets. They will fly them until they cannot fly them anymore.”

Leduc predicts that the main effect of the new rules will be the lost business from servicing European-based planes fitted with hush kits. He claims more than 100 orders for US hush-kit fitted planes would have to be cancelled by European airlines if the planned regulations are enacted.

He also suggests that the new rules may have been drawn up with the express aim of helping European rivals such as Rolls Royce win more sales.

He points out that one of the criteria laid down in the planned EU regulations for assessing whether aircraft comply with its noise standards is the amount of air which goes around the centre of an engine compared with that which goes through its core - known as the by-pass ratio. Leduc claims that this has little to do with noise or pollution, and questions why a limit of three or more has been set on this ratio. “Curiously, that is where the Rolls Royce Tay engine stands. Why did they not draw the line at four or five? That is why we sense that it is politically motivated,” he says.

Like Airbus, Rolls Royce sources have moved swiftly to deny that they influenced the decision.

Whatever the Union's motive for the new rules, American companies insist that it will have a massive impact on the economics of the industry.

They say the fact that the EU has chosen to go further than the ICAO rules adds uncertainty to the system, claiming that if trade blocs introduce regulations which go beyond those agreed at international level, markets will fragment. It would be far better, they insist, for Europe to work with ICAO on the next stage of tough noise and pollution controls.

Firms on both sides of the Atlantic fear the current crisis over the EU's banana regime could be followed by an even more damaging trade war over hush kits if the Union ignores the warnings emanating from Washington and presses ahead with implementation of the new rules.

That is why industry insiders privately expect a deal to emerge in high level talks between the two sides over the next two weeks. If a compromise is struck, they may well have the battle over bananas to thank.