As regards noise hindrance, ICAO has approved through its resolution A33-7 passed during its general meeting in October 2001 the « Balanced Approach » principle that defines the main elements of a concept allowing the management of noise from aircraft around the airports. This principle has been adopted by the European Union in the form of Directive 2002/30/EC that establishes rules and procedures on the introduction of operational restrictions regarding noise at the airports in the European Union. Its aim is to consider the problems of noise hindrance in the most efficient way by choosing a method that meets the environmental aspects and can at the same time be economically justified. This Directive has been translated into Belgian law by a Royal Decree of 25th September 2003.
The balanced approach comprises four elements:
- noise abatement at the source;
- operational restrictions on aircraft;
- operational procedures of noise abatement;
- management plan and land-use planning.
Noise abatement at the source takes into account the technological improvements of aircraft and the modernisation of air fleets.
The operational restrictions are related to tariff rates intended to penalise the noisiest aircraft and to reward the least noisy ones through tariffs that take into account noise categories and periods (day/night), and installing access restrictions for the noisier aircraft categories (by using quota counts) and restrictions to the number of movements and/or allowed quotas. This system has been applied at Brussels Airport for several years now and allows four noise categories and a much higher rate at night than by day in order to encourage companies through a financial incentive to use the least noisy aircraft.
Most of the operational procedures that are recommended by ICAO to reduce noise are already being applied by Belgocontrol. A specific technique for landings, called Continuous Descent Approach, is being analysed by our services and Eurocontrol. But it has an impact on capacity and is difficult to be implemented as such in complex and concentrated airspaces such as our airspace. Nevertheless, Belgocontrol’s expertise makes that it can contribute to noise abatement by means of similar type of measures.
On the other hand, take-offs are already assigned a runway slot, the «Holding Point Slot », which manages the number of aircraft waiting their turn to line up.
The land-use management and planning depend on local governments. Until now they have not taken any legislatives measures defining the specific building rules around airports. Belgocontrol wants a political decision-making so as not to encourage the building of houses near airports, because they are a source of future complaints and slow down economic growth and employment at the airports as well as at the regions they serve.
