Quieter arrivals trends continues at Heathrow

Airlines are putting more effort into noise reduction at Heathrow according to the results of the just published ‘Fly Quiet League’ which tracked the noise performance of aircraft from April to June 2015.

The Fly Quiet League table compares each of the top 50 airlines (according to the number of annual flights through Heathrow) across six different noise metrics.

Air India has moved up 20 places (from 35th to 15th place), Lufthansa up nine and South African up 18 - all due to keeping within Heathrow’s noise preferential routes. SAS is up five places to ninth place putting the airline in the top ten quietest airlines and LOT is up two places because of its use of Continuous Descent Approach, a quieter flight procedure where pilots descend at a steadier rate and avoid a traditional approach which flies at low altitudes for longer.

Heathrow is a pioneer in the use of this approach, with over 85% of arriving aircraft adhering to this quieter flight procedure as they arrive into the airport.

Matt Gorman, Heathrow’s Sustainability and Environment Director said: “The Civil Aviation Authority recently released a report showing Heathrow’s noise footprint is smaller than ever. But we know we have to do more to provide greater respites for our neighbours.

“We will continue to engage directly with our airline partners to build on the trends we see today.

“We are pleased to see the great leaps forward made by some airlines in their use of continuous descent approaches into the airport, while innovative noise-reduction tools like steeper approaches are being explored and employed by all our airlines.”