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Airport Operators Association welcomes publication of new Sustainable Aviation Noise Road-Map

The Airport Operators Association (AOA), the trade body which represents UK airports, has welcomed this week’s publication of the Sustainable Aviation (SA) Noise Road-Map, which demonstrates how noise from UK aviation will not increase despite a near doubling in flights in the next 40 years.

Darren Caplan, Chief Executive of the AOA, which is a leading member of SA, said: “The Government’s Aviation Policy Framework, published last month, set out why growth in aviation is needed in order to deliver jobs and increased prosperity and to safeguard our economic well-being. The Sustainable Aviation Noise Road-Map is a serious and well-researched effort to demonstrate to policy-makers how the aviation sector can grow significantly, without increasing overall noise levels. Taken together with the 2012 SA Carbon Road-Map, Sustainable Aviation is clearly demonstrating how our sector can deliver cleaner, quieter, smarter flying thanks to technological advance, operational measures and cleaner fuels. Aviation really does have robust plans to deal with both carbon and noise.”

For further information please contact Tim Alderslade on 020 7340 0992 / 078 5533 7616 or timalderslade@aoa.org.uk.

ENDS       

•     A world-first, SA was launched in 2005 and brings together the main players from UK airlines, airports, engine and airframe manufacturers and ATM providers. SA is unique in the transport sector, established specifically to find industry solutions to the aviation sustainability challenge, and to deliver cleaner, quieter, smarter aviation.
•     The SA Noise Road-Map concludes that aircraft innovations and engine technology, operational advancements and better land-use planning offer the potential to reduce UK aviation noise output by 2050 compared to 2010, despite a forecast growth in flights. This finding is not airport specific and cannot be read as the projection of noise output for any particular airport. This will depend on the aircraft types and rates of penetration of newer aircraft at individual airports.
•     This prediction builds on the huge progress that the industry has already made to reduce its noise impact. A review of noise data at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted, Birmingham and Luton airports between 1998 and 2010 found that the number of people inside the UK Government’s standard measure of noise impact reduced by nearly 40% despite an increase in flights of over 5% at those airports. This analysis echoes the Government’s own finding that the number of people within the same contour around Heathrow has shrunk since the 1970s from two million to 245,000.
•     The Noise Road-Map presents a tool kit to assist the industry in further developing measures to reduce noise from aircraft and will help spread best practice models and develop noise strategies for the future.
•     It examines the complex and subjective nature of aircraft noise, whilst understanding that it remains a real source of tension for some people living close to airports.

For further information, or to read the Road-Map in full, please visit the SA website at www.sustainableaviation.co.uk.

The Airport Operators Association: The AOA is the trade association that represents UK airports. Its mission is to see UK airports grow sustainably. It represents the views of UK airports to Government, Parliament and Regulators to secure policy outcomes that help deliver our mission. The AOA represents some 70 UK airports and general aviation airfields in the UK. For more information, please visit www.aoa.org.uk.