All quiet at Heathrow

Please note this is not the air chaos story in this issue.

British Airways continues to place first in Heathrow’s Fly Quiet table, which lists airlines according to how quiet their operations are.

Covering July to September 2014, the fifth Fly Quiet table rated the top 50 airlines operating at Heathrow (by number of flights per quarter) according to six noise related criteria.  The airlines received a red/amber/green rating for each criterion, as well as an overall score that allows them to understand how they are performing in relation to other airlines.

The top five performers – British Airways (short haul), Aer Lingus, Virgin Atlantic Little Red, Virgin Atlantic Airways, American Airlines – have remained the same over the past two league tables, highlighting these airlines' consistently good noise performance at the airport.

This quarter, airlines rating amber and red increased by 10 compared to the last quarter in their use of the ‘Continuous Descent Approach’ (CDA).  While at the moment, over 85% of daytime and over 90% of night-time arrivals at Heathrow achieve a CDA, the scores in this quarter make it clear some airlines need to improve their use of this quiet landing technique.

John Holland-Kaye, CEO of Heathrow, has written to those airlines failing to meet Heathrow’s CDA standards, asking for engagement from their technical teams with the airport to increase CDA adherence.  Improvements in quiet approaches is a vital part of Heathrow’s new blueprint for noise reduction, which outlines 10 steps to reduce noise impacts from the airport by summer 2015.

Contrary to the last quarter, in which all airlines adhered to night-time operation limits, this quarter there were three unscheduled arrivals by airlines before 06:00. www.heathrowairport.com

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