Today, April 23, starts the one-year trial run for seven-hour flyover noise abatements at Frankfurt Airport. The alternating non-use of individual runways in the shoulder hours (22:00 to 23:00 and 05:00 to 06:00) are intended to bring one hour more of sleep to the surrounding residential areas.
The trial run, which is planned only for operating direction 25 or so-called ‘West operations,’ i.e. all take offs heading west and all landings from the east, was agreed upon early February by the Hessian state government together with representatives of German Air Traffic Control (DFS), the airport operator, Fraport, and Lufthansa.
“As the largest airline company in Frankfurt, we are committed to noise abatements as a voluntary measure. That’s why we pledge our full support for a trial run,” said Kay Kratky, Lufthansa Passage board member, on February 4th at the signing of the ‘Alliance for Noise Abatements’ paper in Wiesbaden’s Hessian state parliament.
These noise abatements represent another noise protection measure and complement the ‘Alliance for Noise Protection 2012′ measures concluded three years ago. Other measures include a noise ceiling, further differentiation of noise charges, and approach angles, which were increased from 3 to 3.2 degrees so that aircraft fly over some regions at higher altitudes.
However, because this is a trial run of these noise abatements it may happen that not everything will always proceed as planned.