The Netherlands Government has reached a last-minute compromise which will allow Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to breach its strict noise regime, which was threatening to cause chaos in operations in the final three months of the year. The airport says that it will still have to rein in its growth in movements for 1998, however.
The restrictions centre on a noise "contour" drawn around the airport, within which there is a complex formula for limiting the noise impact of aircraft take-offs and landings, with added penalties for Stage 3 aircraft and night flying.
Schiphol, which has seen an 8%increase in movements in the first half of 1997, was heading for a breach of the limits, which would under law have forced closure of runways during the day. The airport concedes that it was "tending to infringe" the contour limits in a couple of places, although not in heavily populated areas.
The airport says that it was facing day-time flight restrictions to stay within the annual limits, causing potential chaos to airline services, in particular to KLM's hub operations. The Dutch carrier estimates that the action would have cost the airline around DFl150 million ($75 million)over the last three months of the year, and appealed to the Dutch prime minister that this was out of proportion to the benefit to local residents.
On 3 October, the Dutch Government agreed to overlook the minor infringements, given the size of economic penalties. In return, Schiphol has agreed to further limits on noise at night by closing two of its four runways from 21.00 each day, rather than 23.00.
Schiphol, however, says that slot co-ordinators are now working to ensure that the airport does not run into similar problems in 1998, which will probably see growth in movements reined back to 4% or less. Measures are likely to include more severe penalties on Stage 2 aircraft, which are already penalised by double landing fees during the day.
Other longer-term measures being considered include bringing forward the opening of a fifth runway, due in 2003. KLMis arguing that the contour boundary should be made more flexible so that a minor infringement in one area does not automatically penalise the whole operation.
Source: Flight International
