dhe cities of Rüsselsheim, Heusenstamm and Neu-Isenburg fear defeat in the proceedings they have initiated at the administrative court in Kassel against the segmented approach currently being tested at Frankfurt airport. In a statement from the three cities, which serve as model actors for 15 municipalities, it said that the Administrative Court refused to stay the proceedings until the Federal Office of Air Traffic Control Supervision decides on the German air traffic control (DFS) has submitted an application for further testing approval. Rather, the judges in Kassel indicated that they would soon rule against the model plaintiffs’ urgent demands.
The procedure addresses the additional aircraft noise associated with the segmented approach for these and other municipalities. The burden arises because in hitherto regular flight operations, cities such as Offenbach and Mainz can be flown around with this variation of the approach. It is a question of distributing aircraft noise to some extent to the municipalities which have so far been least affected in favor of these heavily polluted cities. The three “model actors” are considered to be the most affected municipalities. There, aircraft noise is most noticeable as planes curve around cities that are always directly overflown in normal operation and are continually more heavily loaded than others.
