Battle on horizon over aircraft noise

Date: 97/19/0901

By Michael Mann

EUROPEAN Commission officials are pressing for stricter limits to force manufacturers to build quieter aircraft as the only realistic way to reduce noise pollution around Europe's airports.

They hope that a policy paper examining ways to combat the problem now doing the rounds of the aviation industry will form the basis of firm proposals for tighter standards later this year.

Looking ahead to her term in the chair at Council of Ministers' meetings, Dutch Transport Minister Annemarie Jorritsma-Lebbink also claimed this week that noise would be “the political issue facing Europe's airports in the future”.

But industry lobbies, which have already persuaded Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann to block plans for tighter emission standards for aircraft engines, are gearing up to resist any attempt to impose extra costs on their business.

According to the Commission, passenger and cargo traffic will grow by up to 7&percent; every year over the next two decades, making action to combat noise pollution increasingly urgent.

The policy paper suggests four possible solutions, but officials make no secret of their preference for tighter restrictions on noisy aircraft. “Ideally, we would like to go beyond the current rules which foresee the phase-out of the noisier 'Chapter 2' aircraft by 2002. We must start the pressure now for even quieter aircraft,” said one.

Although the paper claims “the introduction of noise zoning and land-use rules appears to be the key issue”, officials point out there is only limited scope for planning controls around airports, most of which date back several decades. “If you cannot take people away from the noise, you have to take noise away from people,” said one.

Commission officials stress, however, that there are no plans at this stage to introduce punitive tax measures to reduce noise, although environmental costs will be built into controversial plans for a new system of airport charges due for adoption later this year.

In the long term, the Commission is calling for additional research into 'whispering' aircraft, with the aim of reducing noise by seven to ten decibels over the next 15 years. “It is worth noting that the European effort is now lagging behind the effort initiated two years ago in the US,” says its paper.

Further work will also be needed on operational procedures which either steer aircraft clear of heavily populated areas or keep them at the greatest height for as long as possible.

Commenting on the paper, a spokesman for the Association of European Airlines (AEA) said: “There is nothing here we can disagree with, but also nothing we can accept today because we do not know the worth of such measures.”

The AEA believes the EU should leave regulation of noise and air pollution to the International Civil Aviation Organisation's committee on environmental protection.

“We are never happy with unilateral actions by individual regions,” said the spokesman.

But a Commission official was sceptical, claiming that existing international noise regulations were now 25 years old “a quarter of the life of the industry” and that there was no prospect of agreement on international standards.

In the meantime, the Directorates-General for transport (DGVII) and the environment (DGXI) are trying to persuade Bangemann to unblock plans for a further 16&percent; cut in nitrous oxide emissions from aircraft engines. “Industry could cope with this, but would prefer not to,” said an adviser to Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard.