Airport nuisances: vigilance on night flights and business jets

In this text, consulted by AFP before its presentation to the government on Monday, the independent authority (Acnusa), notes better compliance with environmental rules (noise and air pollution) by the major airlines last year: they made the subject of 0.92 prosecution for 10,000 movements (take-offs and landings) against 1.5 in 2019, the last year before the health crisis.

The Covid-19 pandemic, which torpedoed passenger traffic, on the other hand had the effect of boosting air freight, a phenomenon evident for example at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.

Regulatory limits on the number of night movements (from midnight to 5:30 a.m.) could be exceeded there once passenger traffic to Asia, currently sluggish, picks up in volume, a reason for “great vigilance“because it would be a”knife stroke in the confidence of local authorities and populations“, warned the president of Acnusa, Gilles Leblanc, in an interview with AFP: reducing their footprint constitutes “a major challenge and issue“.

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While the renewal of fleets with the latest generation aircraft is one of the most effective levers for reducing nuisance, the strong demand for freight has had the effect of “return to the (older) aircraft market“. Results: “we have a degradation in average noise at Roissy“, lamented Mr. Leblanc.

The latter also regretted “three years of inertia“after the commitments made in terms of the fight against nuisances during the Air Transport Conference in 2019, which, according to him, creates a “loss of trustworthy“people,”quite disturbing“, with some “points of tension in Nantes, in Toulouse“, as well as at Roissy.

And this, while passenger traffic is booming again and it seems certain that “we will exceed the 2019 record” in several French airports this summer, according to Mr. Leblanc.

Another legacy of the pandemic, the so-called aviation boomaffaires“, as requested. In his report, “the Autorité recommends that the strategic State support local authorities in the rational development of this segment of activity“.

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“We have a feeling that this sector can be of fairly sustainable growth, but on which regulation has not been thought out“, noted the president of Acnusa.