Call to exempt fleet of Russian aid planes from EU noise rules

Date: 07/06/01

By Bruce Barnard

The world's commercial fleet of around 60 Ilyushin 76 freighters will be barred from all EU airports next April because they do not meet the new noise standards.

Humanitarian agencies say there is no readily available replacement for the 45-tonne-capacity plane, which can use unprepared landing strips without any ground-handling facilities. The plane is also significantly cheaper to charter than western aircraft.

The air cargo industry is pressing the Commission to grant the four-engine IL-76 a three-to-five year exemption from the new noise regulations while it mulls ways to reduce the plane's noise level.

Coyne Airways, a British air broker, organised around 50 IL-76 aid flights into Kosovo and was involved in emergency lifts for the recent earthquakes in Turkey and India. The planes "save hundreds of lives every year", said chief executive Larry Coyne.

The Commission is reluctant, however, to make exceptions to the legislation, which it pushed through at the risk of a trade war with Washington. The US opposes the ban because it curbs the use of freighters fitted with 'hush kits', or engine mufflers.

Cargo airlines are suggesting the noise regulations should be by airport and not by aircraft type and are seeking an exemption for the plane to use selected out-of-the way hubs. Several European airports have already said they are willing to accept the IL-76 after April, including Skavsta, near Stockholm, Europort Vatry, a new airport in France's Champagne region, and Vitoria, a freight airport in northern Spain.

The lobbying campaign for the IL-76 coincides with reports that the supersonic Concorde, which has a special exemption from noise regulations, is about to resume transatlantic flights. The disturbance caused by IL-76s at out-of-the-way airports would be minor compared to the "racket" caused by the Concorde, argues Coyne. "I wouldn't like to be the person making the moral trade-off between reduced noise at secondary airports and hundreds of deaths in the Third World. Clearly someone is," he told a recent air cargo conference in Stockholm.

Operators of the IL-76 are mulling a hush-kitting programme and have approached a firm that has fitted mufflers to around 800 converted Boeing 727 freighters in the US.

A muffled fleet would not be ready by April, however, and would still run foul of the legislation, which bans hush-kitted aircraft unless they were registered in the EU before 3 May 2000.

The fleet's owners are already facing a €450,000 per plane bill to fit a Traffic Collision Avoidance System and other equipment by September. A complete re-engining, costing nearly €3 million per aircraft, is ruled out. The freighter would have to fly many more hours to recover the cost which would be difficult as it needs five to ten hours to load and offload and requires a minimum 12 hours crew rest.

A ban on the IL-76 would also hit shipments of outsize cargoes for the aircraft, aerospace, automotive and telecoms industries - most of which western planes can't carry.

With the ban looming, Coyne has warned it is vital to keep the IL-76 fleet flying because if it is grounded for longer than a month "it is game over".

The European Commission is being urged to exempt a Russian plane that carries 90$ of emergency humanitarian aid from controversial noise regulations that take effect in 2002.